US President Donald Trump has hailed an “amazing” meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, amid rising hopes for a de-escalation of tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.
Beijing was less effusive, saying the two side had reached a consensus to resolve “major trade issues” during the leaders’ first face-to-face meeting in six years.
Trump’s trade war had set off tit-for-tat tariffs that shot past 100% on both sides, but they agreed to a truce in May – although tensions remained high.
Thursday’s talks did not lead to a formal agreement but the announcements suggest they are closer to a deal – the details of which have long been subject to behind-the-scenes negotiations.
Trade deals normally take years to negotiate, and countries around the world have been thrown into resolving differences with the current Trump administration within a matter of months.
One key win for Trump is that China has agreed to suspend export control measures it had placed on rare earths, crucial for the production of everything from smartphones to fighter jets.
A jubilant president told reporters on Air Force One that he had also got China to start immediately buying a “tremendous amounts of soybeans and other farm products”. Retaliatory tariffs on American soybeans by Beijing had effectively halted imports from the US, harming US farmers – a key voting block for Trump.
There was, however, no mention of a breakthrough on TikTok. The US has sought to take the video-sharing app’s US operations away from Chinese parent company ByteDance for national security reasons. Beijing said afterwards it would continue to work to resolve the issues.
Meanwhile, the US has said it will drop part of the tariffs it has levied on Beijing over the flow of ingredients used in making fentanyl to the US. Trump has imposed severe tariffs on the US’s top trade partners for their perceived failure to clamp down on the drug.
However, it seems other tariffs, or taxes on imported goods, will remain in place, meaning that goods arriving in the US from China are still being taxed at a rate of over 40% for US importers.
Beijing will also be able to speak to Jensen Huang, the head of US tech firm Nvidia – according to Trump. Nvidia is at the heart of the two countries’ fight over AI chips: China wants high-end chips but the US wants to limit China’s access, citing national security.
Beijing has also extended an invitation to Trump to visit China in April – yet another sign of thawing relations.
But the meeting also showed the gulf between the two leaders’ approaches.
Xi was self-contained, and said only what he had prepared. He entered the meeting knowing he had a strong hand. China had learned from Trump’s first term, leveraging its chokehold on rare earths, and diversifying its trade partners so it is less reliant on the US.
Afterwards, he was far more measured in his language than Trump. The two sides would be working on delivering outcomes that will serve as a “reassuring pill” for both countries’ economies, he said.
Trump was – as always – more ad-lib. But the US president was also noticeably more tense than he had been for the rest of his whirlwind trip to South East Asia – a reflection of the high stakes in Thursday’s meeting.
The glamour and pageantry on show since he arrived at his first stop in Malaysia just five days ago was also absent.
Gone were the gold-laden palaces of the sort he was welcomed to in Japan on Tuesday. Instead, a building at an airport, lying behind barbed wire and security checkpoints.
The military bands which welcomed Trump to South Korea on Wednesday were nowhere to be seen.
Instead, the only sign something important was going on inside was the heavy police and media presence.
But despite the quieter public face, what was happening inside was arguably the most significant hour and 20 minutes of the trip.
Henry Wang, a former adviser to China’s State Council, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Trump and Xi’s talks “went very well”.
It may not have been a trade deal, but a “framework and structure has been laid”, he added – calling it “a good start”.
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