Concluding his trip to Asia with a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, President Donald Trump said Thursday he will reduce tariffs on Chinese goods by 10 percentage points in recognition of positive developments in trade talks covering issues such as soybean sales, rare earth exports and fentanyl suppression.
“On the scale from zero to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump said on Air Force One. “We’ve already seen the action on fentanyl, and they’re taking very strong action.”
The tariff reduction halves a 20% tariff on Chinese goods imposed by Trump as punishment for the country’s purported involvement in the production of chemicals used to make fentanyl. The cut lowers the overall tariff on Chinese imports from 57% to 47%.
Trump also reportedly secured a one-year delay in the imposition of new restrictions on the export of rare earths from China to the U.S., as well as a pledge by China to resume its purchases of American-grown soybeans.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China has agreed to purchase 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans per year for three years, starting with about half that amount between now and the end of the year. The relief for farmers may arrive too late to save this year’s growing season, though, and Congress has reportedly teed up a rescue package for farmers (see below).
China also won concessions, including a suspension of U.S. sanctions on blacklisted Chinese companies.
Details on the trade deal, however, remain sparse, with Bessent referring to it as a “very substantial framework” rather than a detailed formal agreement. Trump said he would travel to Beijing in April to meet again with Xi, with the Chinese leader coming to the U.S. after that.
A temporary reprieve? The trade agreement marks a significant decrease in tension between China and the U.S. In a statement released after the meeting, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said that Beijing “looks forward to working with the United States to do a good job in implementation and inject more certainty and stability into Sino-U.S. economic and trade cooperation and the world economy.”
That said, the framework leaves many questions unanswered and offers no long-term solutions. Trump indicated that the agreement is short-term, saying, “We have a deal — now, every year, we’ll renegotiate the deal.”
Some observers worry that the short-term agreement simply delays a confrontation between China and the U.S. rather than defusing it. “This is only going to be something that’s going to last for a period of months, or perhaps a year or so,” Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s trade negotiator during his first term, told Bloomberg. “And then we’re going to be back there, and have to look at it again.”
Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Associated Press that the framework “fits the pattern we’ve seen all year: short-term stabilization dressed up as strategic progress.” Singleton added that both China and the U.S. are looking for ways to manage the tensions between them and avert a crisis, even as “the deeper rivalry endures.”
Some critics of Trump’s trade strategy argued that China is coming out of the confrontation stronger than ever. “China gave some ground, but the clear dynamic is how Chinese threats have gotten the U.S. to back off a series of proposed restrictions,” said Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, per Bloomberg. “Xi has created more safe space for China’s economic system and its efforts to achieve greater global leadership.”
A Bronx cheer from Dems: Speaking on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer slammed Trump for leaving the country during the government shutdown and accused him of congratulating himself for “cleaning up a mess that he created” while getting little from his aggressive trade war.
“He bowed down to President Xi,” Schumer said. “Don't believe Trump. Trump has folded on China. Don't believe his BS. He created the mess, now he's trying to clean up the mess, and then he says, don't I deserve 17 pats on the back? Americans have heard this old song and dance from China and Trump before.”
House Minority Leader Hakeen Jeffries echoed Schumer’s critique, saying Trump’s trade strategy has raised costs for Americans for no appreciable benefit. “It appears to most reasonable observers that Donald Trump was punked on the world stage by the Chinese Communist Party,” Jeffries said at a press conference.
Trump’s trade policy is causing some concerns among Republicans, too, es evidenced by the three votes in the Senate this week to repeal many of the president’s tariffs. Sen. Rand Paul, one of the Republicans who helped pass the three Senate resolutions this week, said that while he is pleased that Trump is reducing tariffs on China, they remain higher than they were previously. “It still will lead to increased prices,” he said.