After an “amazing meeting” with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in South Korea, US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he will cut fentanyl tariffs on China from 20 per cent to 10 per cent.
Trump earlier imposed a 20 per cent tariff on Chinese goods over fentanyl as a measure to curb the flow of chemical ingredients for the drug into the United States. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump announced his decision to cut the tariffs down to 10 per cent and said, “I believe he’s going to work very hard to stop the death that’s coming in.”
The two leaders met in Busan on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju. Trump also said that a dispute between China and the United States had been “settled”.
Additionally, he said that the deal with China on the supply of crucial rare earths is a one-year extendable agreement. “All the rare earths has been settled, and that’s for the world,” Trump told reporters, adding that the deal would be re-negotiated annually.
Further, Trump said that he and Xi agreed to “work together” on the issue of resolving the war in Ukraine. “Ukraine came up very strongly. We talked about it for a long time, and we are both going to work together to see if we can get something,” he stated.
Trump added that the Chinese President is going to help the US and work together on Ukraine.
Calling his meeting with Xi Jinping a “great success”, Trump told reporters that he will visit China in April 2026.
The US President clarified that he and Xi did not discuss Taiwan, saying that it “never came up. That was not discussed actually”.
As the leaders met in Busan on Thursday morning, they shook hands and shared smiles, and posed for cameras. Trump had then expressed confidence that, without any doubt, they were going to have a very successful meeting. He said that Xi is a “very tough negotiator”, which is “not good”.
During their meeting, Xi expressed “great pleasure” in meeting Trump again after many years.
“Under our joint guidance, China-US relations have remained stable on the whole. Given our different national conditions, we do not always see eye to eye with each other, and it is normal for the two leading economies of the world to have frictions now and then,” he added.
