Former US President Donald Trump has declared his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea a “great success”, claiming several breakthroughs in their first face-to-face talks in six years, according to a Guardian report.
Speaking after the meeting, Trump announced that Washington’s dispute with Beijing over rare earths supply has been settled, China would resume purchasing American soybeans, and the US would reduce certain tariffs on Chinese goods.
Trump told reporters that Xi had agreed to work “very hard” to curb production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which has been blamed for numerous American deaths. In exchange, the US would lower fentanyl-linked tariffs from 20% to 10%, reducing the overall tariff burden from 57% to 47%.
The former president also revealed plans for reciprocal visits, saying he would travel to China in April with Xi visiting the United States sometime afterwards.
According to Chinese state media, Xi stated that the leaders had reached “consensus” on trade issues. The Chinese president said both sides should “finalise follow-up work as soon as possible, maintain and implement the consensus and provide tangible results to set minds at ease about the economies of China, the United States and the world”.
Trump indicated that Ukraine featured prominently in their discussions, saying the war “came up very strongly” as an issue. “We talked about it for a long time, and we’re both going to work together to see if we can get something,” he said.
The meeting at Gimhae airbase in Busan lasted one hour and 40 minutes, considerably shorter than the three to four hours Trump had suggested beforehand. The two leaders shook hands in front of their countries’ flags, with Trump remarking: “We’re going to have a very successful meeting.” He added: “He’s tough negotiator – that’s not good,” before patting the Chinese leader on the back.
Xi emphasised that China and the US should “stay on the right course” and “be partners and friends”, working together “to accomplish more great and concrete things for the good of our two countries and the whole world”.
The positive tone in Busan contrasted sharply with the recent aggressive rhetoric over trade that had threatened to set the two economic giants on a collision course. However, China’s yuan retreated from a near one-year high against the dollar on Thursday after the meeting met expectations but gave investors few new reasons for trade optimism.
Taiwan was not discussed at the meeting, according to Trump, despite concerns in Taipei that he might make concessions to Xi regarding the self-governing democracy.
Minutes before the summit began, Trump posted on social media that he had ordered the Pentagon to begin nuclear weapons testing at the same level as China and Russia. He did not respond to a reporter’s question about this decision as the meeting commenced.
(information from The Guardian)
