US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping cemented a temporary trade truce, including a reprieve on rare earth export restrictions.
Trump has engineered a flurry of trade deals with other Asian countries and Australia over the past week to supply the US with rare earth minerals, which are critical for batteries and clean energy hardware as well as sectors more important to Trump, including weapons and AI chips. But those new supplies will take years to come online, and in the meantime China will continue to dominate the rare earth supply chain.
On Thursday, after Trump and Xi met in South Korea, Beijing agreed to push off planned export controls on some rare earths in exchange for a reduction in US tariffs — but left in place restrictions on other rare earths that were introduced in April, signaling its intent to hold on to what has become one of its most valuable negotiating chips.
