Trump clarifies he hasn’t cancelled meeting with Xi; calls China’s new export curbs ‘shocking’

On Friday (local time), US President Donald Trump said that he had not officially canceled the meeting he planned to hold with Chinese President Xi Jinping, clarifying his recent statements that “he has no reason to meet with Xi.”

But Trump expressed surprise at China’s new export restrictions requiring export licenses for rare earth elements, describing the move as “out of the blue.”

“No, I didn’t cancel it. But I’m not sure if we’ll get it. I’ll be there no matter what. I would assume we could get it. However, they hit the world with something. It was shocking. All of a sudden they came up with this import-export concept and no one knew anything about it,” he told reporters at the White House.
Earlier, Trump said there was “no reason to meet” with Chinese President Xi Jinping after Beijing took “very hostile” steps by imposing sweeping new export controls on rare earths. He also warned that the United States was preparing to respond with strong countermeasures.

Asked if the U.S. would cancel additional tariffs on China if China rolls back restrictions, Trump said, “We’ll have to see what happens. That’s why I did that on November 1.”

He added that the United States is considering export controls on a range of products beyond software, including aircraft parts. “There’s a lot more. We have planes and parts. We’re just surprised by China. I have a very good relationship with President Xi, and they did this. This is not something I encouraged. It was just a response to something they did. And they didn’t actually target it at us. They aimed it at the whole world. I thought that was very, very bad,” he said. Amid Beijing’s expanding restrictions on rare earth exports and related technologies, the US President announced that the US will impose 100 percent tariffs on Chinese goods “beyond any tariffs they currently pay” effective November 1, 2025. Trump said that export controls will be applied to all critical software starting from the same day.

In a post published on Truth Social on Friday (local time), the US President said: “Based on the fact that China has taken this unprecedented position and speaks only on behalf of the United States and not other similarly threatened countries, beginning November 1, 2025 (or sooner depending on any actions or changes made by China), the United States will impose a 100% Tariff on China beyond any Tariffs they are currently paying. Also 1 In November, Export Controls on all critical software.”

Trump announced this in response to what he described as China “taking an extraordinarily aggressive position on trade” by sending a “very hostile letter to the world.”

“It has become known that China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade by sending an extremely hostile letter to the world stating that, effective November 1, 2025, they will impose large-scale Export Controls on almost every product they produce, even some that are not made by them. This affects ALL countries without exception, and was frankly a plan devised by them years ago. It is absolutely unheard of in International Trade and relations with other countries.” a moral disgrace. Nations,” Trump said.

“It is impossible to believe that China would take such an action, but they did, and the rest is history. Thank you for your interest in this matter,” he added.

This comes in response to China increasing restrictions on rare earth exports, expanding the checklist and expanding restrictions to cover processing technologies and overseas applications, including in the military and semiconductor sectors.