Trump cuts fentanyl tariffs on China to 10%, says U.S. reached rare earths deal with Beijing
BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA – OCTOBER 30: U.S. President Donald Trump (R) speaks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a bilateral meeting at Gimhae Air Base in Busan, South Korea, on October 30, 2025.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images News
US President Donald Trump said that after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday, he reached a 1-year agreement with China on rare earths and critical minerals and reduced the fentanyl tariffs on Beijing by half.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he was leaving South Korea that his meeting with Xi was “great” and that “a lot of decisions were made.”
“The rare earth issue has been resolved,” Trump said, adding that this is a 1-year agreement that will be negotiated every year. Trump said tariffs on fentanyl would be reduced from 20% to 10%, effective immediately, and the tax on Chinese exports would be reduced from 57% to 47%.
In response, Beijing will “work hard to stop fentanyl” and continue to buy American soybeans and other agricultural products.
CME Group’s soybean futures fell 1.6%, while China’s CSI rare earth industry index rose more than 2%, LSEG data showed.
On the sale of Nvidia chips to China, Trump said the two sides discussed “a lot of chips” but not the most advanced Blackwell chips. “They’ll be talking to Nvidia and others about getting chips,” he said.
Trump said Taiwan was not part of the discussion.
Trump said he would go to China in April, without specifying a timeline, and then Xi would go to the United States.
The two leaders met for the first time in six years and the meeting lasted 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Before the meeting, the two leaders struck a conciliatory tone; Trump called Xi “an old friend with whom we have very good relations,” and Xi emphasized that China’s economic growth goals would not undermine Trump’s vision of “Making America Great Again.”
Tensions between the world’s two economic superpowers have reached boiling point this year. The latest surge came this month amid Beijing’s export controls and Washington’s threat to ban software-supported exports to China.
The US has recently shared details about the deals they hope to make with China; From restricting the flow of fentanyl into the US to TikTok’s separation from its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance. Tariffs, technology restrictions and rare earth elements were also discussed.
Beijing has been more cautious about the possibility of a deal, but in a possible sign of thawing relations, China bought its first cargo of U.S. soybeans in as many months, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
