Topline
President Donald Trump agreed to several concrete concessions in his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday, most notably a decrease in tariffs, but Beijing’s offers appear more vague and tentative, leading experts to conclude that Xi has successfully manipulated Trump’s trade wars to China’s advantage.
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2025. (Photo by Shen Hong/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images
Key Facts
The U.S. agreed to reduce a tariff punishing China for the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. by 10%, drop its threat of a new 100% tariff beginning Nov. 1 and extend a pause on reciprocal tariffs for another year, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce—notable deescalations of Trump’s trade war with China.
China, meanwhile, agreed to extend for one year a pause on export controls of rare earth minerals that were in response to Trump’s tariffs, though Trump acknowledged the deal would need to be renegotiated when the year is up.
By leveraging its monopoly on rare earths, China “successfully orchestrated a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ for the Trump administration,” Brookings Institution fellow Jonathan Czin told The New York Times.
The outcome of the meeting “on the surface . . . might look like a return to the status quo before the trade war,” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote, “but it’s more like our surrendering and ending up in a weaker position after a conflict we started,” noting Trump’s tariffs “led China to weaponize its control of rare earths.”
Joe Mazur, a geopolitics analyst at Trivium China consultancy firm, told Reuters the Trump administration’s negotiations with China are “more or less total vindication of China’s strategy of never striking first but always striking back,” calling China’s hold on rare earths “the ace in the hole that China” without “any comparable leverage” from the U.S.
Some other experts said the meeting prevents a new flare up, for now, but “was less breakthrough than breathing room,” Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Politico, while The Economist called the meeting “more grand bazaar than grand bargain.”
Tangent
Trump called the meeting “amazing” and a “12” on a scale of 1-10, but the tone of Beijing’s recap was more cautious: “The two teams can continue their talks in the spirit of equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit, and continuously shorten the list of problems and lengthen the list of cooperation,” the readout of the talks said.
Key Background
The details of Beijing’s offers to the U.S., including China increasing its purchase of soybeans, oil and gas, signing off on a TikTok sale, reducing Chinese purchases of Russian oil and restricting sales of semiconductor chips from U.S. companies to China, appear to be in flux. Trump told reporters about chips sales: “that’s really up to you and Nvidia, but we’re sort of the arbitrator.” He said later on Truth Social China would buy “massive amounts” of soybeans and there could be a “very large” purchase of Alaskan oil and gas. China said it agreed to “expanding agricultural product trade” and to “properly resolve issues related to TikTok.” Trump also backed off his plea for China to reduce purchases of Russian oil to pressure President Vladimir Putin to end the war, telling reporters after the meeting “there’s not a lot more they can do . . . they’ve been buying oil from Russia for a long time. It takes care of a big part of China.”
Further Reading
Trump Halves Fentanyl Tariffs On China After ‘Amazing’ Meeting With Xi—As China Pauses Rare Earth Controls (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/10/30/trump-xi-meeting-why-experts-say-china-came-out-ahead/
