By Trevor Hunnicutt
BUSAN, South Korea (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said he had struck a deal to reduce tariffs on China on Thursday in exchange for Beijing resuming U.S. soybean purchases, keeping rare earths exports flowing and cracking down on the illicit trade of fentanyl.
His remarks after the face-to-face talks with Xi in the South Korean city of Busan, their first since 2019, marked the finale of Trump’s whirlwind Asia trip on which he also touted trade breakthroughs with South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asian nations.
The meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, lasted nearly two hours. Trump shook hands and escorted Xi to his car before the U.S. president was given a red carpet send off at the airport.
Chinese stocks climbed to a decade high and the yuan currency to a near one-year peak against the dollar as investors hoped for an easing of trade tensions that have upended supply chains and rocked global business confidence.
World stock markets from Wall Street to Tokyo have hit record highs in recent days.
Trump repeatedly talked up the prospect of reaching agreement with Xi since U.S. negotiators on Sunday said they had agreed a framework with China that will avoid 100% U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and achieve a deferral of China’s export curbs on rare earths, a sector it dominates.
But with both countries increasingly willing to play hardball over areas of economic and geopolitical competition, many questions remain about how long any trade detente may last.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Busan, Michael Martina, David Brunnstrom, David Lawder and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Lincoln Feast)
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