By Trevor Hunnicutt, Laurie Chen and Mei Mei Chu
BUSAN, South Korea/BEIJING (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump hailed a meeting with China’s Xi Jinping as “amazing” and “12” on a 10-point scale, but the agreement the two leaders reached appears to be no more than a fragile truce in a trade war with root causes still unresolved.
The framework announced on Thursday – that includes China resuming soybean purchases, suspending its rare earths export curbs for a year, and the U.S. lowering tariffs on China by 10% – broadly rewinds ties to the status that existed before Trump’s “Liberation Day” offensive triggered tit-for-tat escalation.
But the deal exposes the fundamental mismatch between what Washington wants and what Beijing is willing to offer. Absent from the talks were the big issues cited by Trump as he launched his tariffs in April – China’s industrial policies, manufacturing over-capacity, and its export-led growth model.
“So what are we talking about? We are talking about de-escalation of the measures that both sides have taken since the start of the Trump administration in this kind of escalating trade war,” said Emily Kilcrease, director at the Center for a New American Security.
The outcome underscores the robustness of Xi’s new approach to dealing with the U.S., which relies on a broad toolbox of measures like export controls, swiftly deployed in response to each move by the Trump administration.
An official briefed on the deliberations said the Chinese had a realistic set of expectations for this encounter – and those did not include a fundamental reset of two-way ties.
They were nonetheless happy with Trump’s tone coming in and his framing of the meeting as a “G2”, said the official, who declined to be named or further identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
China sees this as a stepping stone to a bigger meeting where they can stabilize the relationship, the official added.
‘WORLD-CLASS LEADERS’
Given the long-simmering tensions, the very fact that both leaders had a warm meeting – and agreed to two follow-up visits next year – offers rattled multinational corporations caught in the middle a much needed reprieve, say experts.
Xi opened the talks, which took place ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, by saying that “China’s development and rejuvenation are not incompatible with President Trump’s goal of ‘Making America Great Again’.”
He added that he was willing to work with Trump to “lay a solid foundation for China-U.S. relations and create a favourable environment for the development of both nations.”
Trump emerged from the encounter glowing, chit-chatting and leaning into Xi as both left the venue, later calling him the “great leader of a great country,” and saying that this is how two global superpowers should deal with one another.
“When we have this limited time-frame, the deal and the deal-making structure both function as an engagement mechanism between the two countries, so they can address the issues properly and adjust their mutual interests down the road to make sure people keep talking to each other,” said Bo Zhengyuan, Shanghai-based partner at research consultancy Plenum.
Trump said that tariffs on Chinese imports would be cut to 47% from around 57% by halving the rate of levies related to trade in fentanyl precursor chemicals to 10% from 20%.
Xi will work “very hard to stop the flow” of the chemicals used for the production of the deadly opioid that is the leading cause of American overdose deaths, Trump said, acknowledging that the issue was complex. The tariff was reduced “because I believe they are really taking strong action,” he added.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasised that Trump and Xi were “world-class leaders” in a Monday call with his U.S. counterpart Marco Rubio.
“Their long-term engagement and mutual respect have become the most valuable strategic asset in U.S.-China relations,” he told his American counterpart, in unusually effusive language for a Chinese diplomat.
‘DIFFICULT SITUATION’
The deal buys both sides some breathing room: Trump gets a win before his planned visit to Beijing in April, Xi gets relief from elevated U.S. tariffs that have put pressure on Chinese manufacturers.
But even this tactical detente is incomplete.
China’s latest rare earths licensing curbs are delayed, not dismantled, but earlier restrictions on the critical minerals that have upended global trade remain, leaving U.S. factories facing ongoing uncertainty in sourcing critical materials.
“I think that what we’ve seen this year has been a more or less total vindication of China’s strategy of never striking first but always striking back,” Joe Mazur, geopolitics analyst at Trivium China, a consultancy.
“It’s very clear that rare earths is the primary piece of leverage, the ace in the hole that China is able to wield over the U.S. – it doesn’t look like the U.S. has any comparable leverage or any way of breaking the stranglehold for the time being.”
The agreement also highlights how dramatically the relationship between the world’s two biggest economies has deteriorated since Trump’s first term, when negotiators produced a comprehensive 96-page document covering intellectual property, banking, and agriculture.
This time around, the talks were far less intensive and both sides only offered relatively brief readouts that mostly focused on holding back threats made in the run-up to the talks.
Da Wei, the director of Tsinghua University’s Centre for International Security and Strategy, warned that repeated escalations could exhaust Xi and Trump’s personal rapport.
“If the escalation of tensions happens many times, probably the patience and trust between the two leaders at a personal level will run out,” he said. “Then we will have a very difficult situation.”
(Editing by Antoni Slodkowski and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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