U.S., China hope to make progress on tariffs as Trump and Xi meet in South Korea

GYEONGJU, South Korea — President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in South Korea on Thursday, seeking to ease increasingly tense relations between their two countries in their first meeting since Trump returned to power.

“We’re going to have a very successful meeting, I have no doubt about it,” Trump told reporters before the meeting began in the port city of Busan.

He called Xi a longtime friend and a “tough negotiator,” while adding that he was not sure they would sign a deal at the end of the deal.

“It’s possible,” Trump said. “I think we’ll have a great understanding.”

For his part, Xi acknowledged “friction” between the world’s two largest economies, saying that “considering our different national conditions, we do not always agree.”

The meeting between the two leaders, which took place at an airbase near Gimhae International Airport, lasted about an hour and 40 minutes, with Trump appearing to whisper something in Xi’s ear as they left.

There were smiles among members of the U.S. delegation who followed, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick gave a thumbs up. Trump is now back in Washington after completing a three-country tour of Asia.

The results of the meeting were not immediately clear. Trump and Xi were expected to discuss tariff measures, the fight against fentanyl and access to rare earth minerals, while leaving more ambitious goals for later.

As the Nov. 10 deadline to reach a tariff deal approaches, what began with Trump’s crackdown on the flow of fentanyl into the United States has broadened into a longer list of trade and security issues.

The expectation was that Trump and Xi would agree on a pause in the fight rather than finalizing a comprehensive deal, a person familiar with the matter said before their meeting. Beijing could ease export restrictions on strategically crucial rare earths, Washington could refrain from significant tariff hikes and both sides could take steps, such as increasing China’s purchases of U.S. agricultural products.

Xi is also considering measures on fentanyl chemicals, likely aimed at stifling gang-linked money laundering rings, this person said. The push for a broader deal could happen around Trump’s planned visit to China next year.

The president had said he expected to reduce tariffs on China because of its role in the illicit international flow of fentanyl components. He also said he hoped to finalize a TikTok deal that would allow the social media app to continue operating in the United States despite a law passed before he took office that was close to banning it.

Both Trump and Xi wanted the optical and tactical aspect of this meeting to go well, the person familiar with the planning said.

Dan Caldwell, a former senior adviser to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said Trump deserved credit for pursuing a pragmatic policy toward China that maintained what he called strategic ambiguity while taking steps to restore important military capabilities to deter Chinese aggression.

“A lot of people wanted to assume that he was going to be reflexively hawkish toward China,” Caldwell said of Trump. “That was not the case.”

But Caldwell cautioned against expecting a breakthrough in Busan. “I don’t think the overall effort depends on one meeting,” Caldwell said. “Ideally everything goes well, but not all of this depends on a single round of negotiations. »

In other words, the objective is to make enough progress to reach the next meeting between the two leaders. Trump said earlier that he and Xi had agreed to meet again in China and the United States, “either in Washington or at Mar-a-Lago.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC News this week that Trump would likely visit Xi in Beijing early next year, before the Lunar New Year in February.

Miles Yu, a former State Department adviser on China, said the United States and Beijing are “sizing each other up,” with trade now a key battlefield issue. Washington is pushing for concrete action on fentanyl, market access and more, he said, while China is “stonewalling and dragging its feet” and offering only broad “frameworks.”

“This is the root cause of the five rounds of futile negotiations so far with China, without any breakthrough,” Yu said, adding that the administration was trying to change China’s approach by rallying its neighbors, a strategy he said “may or may not work.”

After discussions with his Chinese counterparts in Malaysia last weekend, Bessent said negotiators had developed a framework for the two leaders to consider tariffs, trade, fentanyl, rare earths and “substantial” purchases of U.S. agricultural products such as soybeans.

He credited Trump’s threat of an additional 100% tariff for creating leverage and said he believed the framework would avoid that outcome and open up space to address other issues.

Xi said Thursday that the framework agreed in Malaysia had “provided the necessary conditions for our meeting today.”

The meeting was the culmination of Trump’s five-day trip to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea. During the trip, he signed agreements with the three countries as well as Thailand and Cambodia; makes new foreign investment announcements; and proclaimed that tariff leverage could cause warring parties to withdraw.

Reflecting on his approach, Trump said going against the grain can sometimes get results.

“A lot of times you will go the opposite way from almost everyone else, and you will be the one who is right, and the rest will be the ones who are wrong,” he said in Gyeongju, South Korea, offering insight into his thinking. “That’s where you have your greatest successes.”

Still, Trump is continuing a long-standing practice of meeting with allies before Beijing, which former Deputy Secretary of State Dave Stilwell said indicates that the United States will not trade its alliance commitments for a deal with China.

One of the most sensitive topics of discussion concerns critical minerals, said Stilwell, who also highlighted political guardrails around concerns over the island of Taiwan, claimed by Beijing.

“Acknowledge the words, but look at the actions,” he said, citing Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent comments that the United States is not trading Taiwan’s sovereignty for better terms with Beijing.

Some Trump aides feared the president might change the U.S. position on Taiwan independence, moving away from long-standing U.S. policy, and advised against it, NBC News reported this week.

Trump appeared to downplay any discussion, saying before his meeting with Xi: “I don’t know if we’ll even talk about Taiwan.” »

Analysts in the region also believe that there is little room for a comprehensive agreement this week. Trump and Xi are unlikely to reach a comprehensive agreement that resolves long-term structural differences between the United States and China, said Zeng Jinghan, a professor of international relations at the City University of Hong Kong. “But

“Some sort of consensus and agreements are very possible,” said Zeng Jinghan, professor of international relations at the City University of Hong Kong, given that both sides want “a bit of de-escalation.”

But Trump and Xi are unlikely to reach a comprehensive deal that addresses long-term structural differences between their countries, he said.

The hope instead is for “less aggressive” rhetoric, Zeng said, with Beijing and Washington likely to come back and declare the meeting a success.