Trump hails ‘amazing’ meeting with Xi in South Korea

US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met for the first time in six years, raising hopes of a de-escalation of tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

Trump called the negotiations held in South Korea “incredible,” while Beijing said they had reached consensus to resolve “major trade issues.”

Relations have been strained since Trump began imposing tariffs on China, to which Beijing responded with its own. They agreed to a truce in May, but tensions remained high.

Thursday’s talks did not result in a formal agreement, but the announcements suggest they are closer to an agreement – the details of which have long been the subject of behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Trade deals normally take years to negotiate, and countries around the world have had to resolve their differences with the current Trump administration within months.

One of Trump’s key victories is that China agreed to suspend export control measures it had imposed 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 convinced China to immediately begin buying “huge quantities of soybeans and other agricultural products.” Beijing’s retaliatory measures on American soybeans effectively halted imports from the United States, hurting American farmers – a key voting bloc for Trump.

There is, however, no mention of a breakthrough on TikTok. The United States has sought to take away the video-sharing app’s U.S. operations from Chinese parent company ByteDance over national security concerns. Beijing later said it would continue to work to resolve these issues.

At the same time, the United States announced it would drop some of the tariffs it imposed on Beijing on the flow of ingredients used in making fentanyl to the United States. Trump has imposed harsh tariffs on America’s major trading partners over their apparent inability to combat drugs.

However, it appears that other tariffs, or taxes on imported goods, will remain in place, meaning that goods arriving in the United States from China will still be taxed at a rate above 40% for American importers.

Beijing will also be able to speak with Jensen Huang, the boss of the American technology company Nvidia, according to Trump. Nvidia is at the heart of the conflict between the two countries over AI chips: China wants high-end chips but the United States wants to limit China’s access, citing national security.

Beijing also invited Trump to visit China in April – another sign of thawing relations.

But the meeting also showed the gap between the two leaders’ approaches.

Xi was autonomous and only said what he had prepared. He walked into the meeting knowing he had a strong hand. China has learned lessons from Trump’s first term, leveraging its hold on rare earths and diversifying its trading partners to become less dependent on the United States.

Subsequently, he was much more measured in his language than Trump. Both sides will strive for results that will serve as a “reassurance pill” for the economies of both countries, he said.

Trump was – as always – more improvisational. But the US president was also noticeably more tense than he had been during the rest of his whirlwind trip to Southeast Asia, a reflection of the high stakes of Thursday’s meeting.

Also absent was the glamor and pageantry displayed since arriving at her first stopover in Malaysia just five days ago.

Gone are the palaces laden with gold in which he was welcomed on Tuesday in Japan. Instead, a building at an airport, behind barbed wire and security checkpoints.

The military bands that welcomed Trump to South Korea on Wednesday were nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the only sign that anything significant was happening inside was the heavy police and media presence.

But despite the calmer 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 program that talks between Trump and Xi “went very well”.

It may not be a trade deal, but “a framework and structure has been established,” he added, calling it a “good start.”