WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he reached an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping on soybean purchases, fentanyl precursors, and rare earth exports, paving the way for a finalized trade deal to be signed "pretty soon" that he said would last for at least a year and result in an immediate reduction in tariffs.
China will immediately begin purchasing "tremendous amounts" of soybeans and other agricultural products from the United States, the president told reporters flying with him on Air Force One.
A deal, Trump said, was also reached to keep China's proposed export controls on rare earth minerals from taking effect. "That roadblock is gone now. There's no roadblock at all on rare earth," he explained.
"We have not too many major stumbling blocks," Trump said of a formal trade agreement. "We have a deal. Now, every year, we'll renegotiate the deal. But I think the deal will go on for a long time. Long beyond the year, we'll negotiate at the end of a year."
The agreement in principle was reached after Trump met with Xi for one hour and forty minutes at a South Korean summit, where they were expected to resolve differences on soybeans, critical minerals, and fentanyl, as well as discuss Russia's war in Ukraine.
