Our live coverage of the Trump-Xi meeting has now closed – read our news story here
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have met in South Korea – leading to a series of announcements on closer trade ties
On the way back to Washington, Trump says the meeting was a 12 out of 10 – Beijing says the results were "hard-won"
The US will cut the "fentanyl tariff" on Chinese goods entering the US from 20% to 10%, Trump says
In return, China will start "the purchase of massive amounts of soybeans" and other farm products, according to the US president
China says they will make it easier for the US to buy rare earths – we explain what they are here
In return, China says, the US will suspend an expansion of export controls on foreign firms listed on the Entity List, which had hit Chinese companies
Trump says a US-China trade deal could be signed "pretty soon" – but there is no ink on paper, and that is the crucial part right now, writes our correspondent in Korea, Laura Bicker
Edited by Ben Hatton and Alex Smith, with Laura Bicker and Suranjana Tewari in South Korea, and Anthony Zurcher travelling with the US president
Angus Thompson
Live reporter
US President Donald Trump has praised an "amazing" meeting with China's Xi Jinping, following a series of announcements bridging trade between the world's largest economies.
The pair met at Busan airport in South Korea, to cap off Trump's whirlwind tour of Asia – and the meeting ended in a partial stand-down in ongoing trade tensions, including a reduction of tariffs on some Chinese goods entering the US.
On Beijing's part, it has agreed to suspend export controls on rare earths – critical for technology from electric vehicles to smartphones – while Trump has said China will also buy "massive" amounts of soybeans, and other farm products.
In words relayed by our North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher, Trump said aboard Air Force One that he rated the talks a “12 on a scale of one to 10”.
The agreements will have global ramifications. But, as our China correspondent Laura Bicker points out, there is no ink on paper for a deal between two superpowers who have spent much of this year trading economic threats.
We're now ending our live coverage. You can read more in our news story.
Following today's meeting between Xi, Trump and their teams of top officials, our correspondents have broken down what it all means.
China correspondent Laura Bicker says the two countries have "stepped back from the brink of a global trade war" in this "breakthrough".
"Trade deals normally take years to negotiate", says Asia Business correspondent Suranjana Tewari, "so it's no surprise that Xi Jinping and Donald Trump didn't sign on the dotted line" today.
That doesn’t mean the agreements made today weren’t significant – especially on rare earths, soybeans, and tariffs.
Rare earth materials will offer "short term relief" for carmakers producing more electric vehicles in the US, says business reporter Jonathan Josephs.
Meanwhile "an agreement on soybeans is a win for Trump", says Tewari, as US farmers have been "losing billions of dollars in sales of the crop to China over the trade frictions".
Jonathan Josephs
BBC business reporter
There are clear differences in tone from the US and Chinese sides after these talks, leading to questions about what exactly has been agreed – but what really matters is delivery.
Despite a small increase last year, the trend of recent years has been a fall in the value of goods the US buys from China.
Companies like Apple and Nike have also moved some production away from China so they are less exposed to tariffs.
As a result the deficit which President Trump has long complained about has generally been falling too, and last year the US bought $295bn (£224bn) more goods from China that it sold to it.
Shrinking that number further is one reason why President Trump gave us the detail that China will buy "tremendous amounts of soybeans and other farm products immediately".
That might help his support amongst US farmers who have suffered as the world's biggest soybean consumer China has bought less of their produce, which it uses amongst other things to feed its pigs.
As part of a trade deal in 2020, China agreed to buy an extra $200bn worth of US goods, with farm produce featuring heavily. But according to analysis by the respected Peterson Institute for International Economics, it never followed through.
More now on what we don't yet know about Trump and Xi's meeting:
The details
Adding to Trump's optimism on a deal and the announcement that he will lower some tariffs on China, Chinese state media reported that both sides reached a consensus to resolve "major trade issues".
But neither side has provided details of what a trade deal would look like.
TikTok
There has been no announced resolution to the dispute over TikTok's ability to operate in the US.
Trump didn't mention it in his remarks after the meeting, and China's statement said on that it will "work with the US to properly resolve issues related to TikTok".
Future relations
The meeting between the two leaders is the first since Trump's return to the White House earlier this year.
The US-China relationship has been turbulent, with tit-for-tat levies on trade. Trump has been known to change his stance after a face-to-face meeting, so the next steps and tone taken by both countries will be closely watched for signs of thawing or escalation.
Overnight, US President Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea – a breakthrough after months of trade tension and tariff increases.
Here's what we know – in less than 150 words:
Why does this matter?
The US and China have been imposing tit-for-tat tariff increases on each other throughout the year. At one point, both sides had imposed rates of over 100%, leaving manufacturers and importers uncertain.
What did China agree to?
China says it will suspend the "implementation" of export control measures for a year.
Meanwhile Trump says China will buy large amounts of soybeans from US farmers – restarting trade after Beijing halted purchases earlier this year.
What did the US agree to?
Trump says the US will reduce tariffs that were introduced over the country's perceived failure to clamp down on the flow of ingredients used in making fentanyl to the US.
He says he'll decrease it from 20% to 10%.
What happens next?
No deal was signed today, but Trump says one is coming "pretty soon". Meanwhile China said the US should "follow up" on discussions.
Charlotte Edwards
Business reporter
The reversal of some US tariffs on China is unlikely to have a major impact as Chinese exporters had largely shrugged them off, says Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China economics at Capital Economics.
However, he says the de-escalation removes the immediate threat of large tariff hikes, easing a key downside risk to the near-term outlook.
"As things stand, information on what was agreed between President Trump and President Xi at their meeting earlier today is patchy," he says.
He adds: "The underlying forces driving the US and China apart remain unresolved, however, and so tensions could easily flare up again. And even if the current truce holds, both sides will continue to pursue wider decoupling efforts."
He says Capital Economics was still "sceptical" that any new deal will be much more than "rehash of the Phase One deal made during Trump’s first term."
"Another Phase One-style deal wouldn’t alter the underlying geopolitical forces that are causing the world economy to fracture into two competing blocs centred on China and the US," he says.
Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent, travelling with the president
At 03:11 local time, Air Force One touched down for a refuelling stop in Anchorage, Alaska.
The president visited the press cabin shortly after the flight took off from South Korea.
He said he had an “amazing” meeting with Xi Jinping, rating it a “12 on a scale of one to 10”.
He said agreements were reached on access to Chinese critical mineral supplies, limiting fentanyl precursor exports and purchase of US soybeans.
Later in the flight White House communications director Steven Cheung came back to the press cabin to hand the pool a printout of Trump’s truth social post recapping the Xi meeting.
Osmond Chia
Business reporter
A China policy analyst says that both Trump and Xi "secured what they needed domestically" out of their meeting.
Stefanie Kam, an analyst at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, says the meeting today "was a reminder that even amid rivalry between great powers, pragmatism grounded in national interest can pave the way for meaningful engagement".
US and Chinese officials have already hammered out much of the trade negotiations before today, from tariffs to fentanyl – two big sore spots in the ongoing bilateral tensions.
But what's new, and where Trump and Xi have "left their personal imprint", says Dr Kam, are the discussions about Beijing holding talks with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, as well as their cooperation on resolving the war in Ukraine.Jonathan Josephs
BBC business reporter
The apparent agreement for China to relax its export controls on rare earths will offer short term relief to the US.
The switch towards electric vehicles has increased the quantities needed by carmakers in particular, and industry bodies have warned of shortages. In June, Ford’s CEO said those shortage had even led to factory closures.
With these materials important to so much modern technology in the long run, the Trump administration is putting its money where its mouth is and lessening its reliance on China.
It’s already invested in the US's only rare earth mine at Mountain Pass in California and is looking for other sources, including from allies such as Greenland, Brazil and Australia, with whom Trump struck a deal this month.
Europe is also looking to lessen its reliance on China for rare earths.
Getting new mines up and running and then processing the material into something usable is a lengthy and expensive process.
That’s why, in the short term at least, access to China’s rare earths is at the top of the US shopping list when its doing trade deals with Beijing.
Security around the Xi and Trump talks was, as you might expect, tight.
Now we're seeing pictures of the Chinese leader leaving that meeting with his limousine flanked by close protection guards running alongside.
We've seen this security spectacle during Xi's visits before, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un also favouring it when he is out and about.
Trump and Xi's talks failed to produce a resolution on the fate of Chinese-owned TikTok being able to operate in the US.
The US president, who has taken a keen interest in the social media app's future, did not mention it in his remarks or social media post after the meeting.
The app was briefly mentioned in the statement released by the Chinese side, which said simply: "China will work with the US to properly resolve issues related to TikTok."
The White House wants the US arm of the firm to be sold off from its Chinese parent company ByteDance, citing national security concerns.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week that a deal had been agreed, with Trump and Xi left to "consummate that transaction on Thursday".
Trump signed an executive order last month to approve a proposal that would allow TikTok to continue running in the US under American ownership – but today's meeting passed without any sort of concrete announcement on progress. Charlotte Edwards
Business reporter
Today’s progress in the US-China trade talks marks “an undeniably positive step toward temporarily stabilising a structurally fractious relationship”, says Louise Loo, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics.
But key points remain unresolved – in particular, what she calls the 'four Ts':
Those go to the heart of the defence, trade and commercial tensions between the two powers.
"Today’s breakthrough sets the stage for deeper, more predictable engagement heading into 2026, potentially culminating in another presidential-level meeting as early as April," she says.
However, Loo warns that the "risk of policy miscalculation and misunderstanding is high".
Suranjana Tewari
Asia Business Correspondent
The first meeting between the leaders of China and the US since Donald Trump's return to the White House was an attempt to soothe tensions between the world's two biggest economies.
Xi Jinping told Trump it was important the relationship between the two countries stayed on course.
The Chinese leader said: “Given our different national conditions, we do not always see eye to eye with each other. And it is normal for the two leading economies of the world to have friction now and then."
The talks and a deal could have a big impact on South East Asia's exporters who are competing with China for the American market.
Businesses in the region – many of which manufacture goods through tightly knit supply chains – have been unable to plan after Trump's tariff war upended global trade.
There's a gap between the rhetoric coming out of the US and Chinese sides about Xi and Trump's meeting earlier. Our China correspondent Laura Bicker in South Korea explains – watch below.
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US and China's different reports of their trade meetingOsmond Chia
Business reporter
"Both sides achieved something, but they came into this with different leverage," says Jason Bedford, an investment analyst who follows the Chinese economy closely.
He says Beijing arrived at the talks "holding a strong hand" – that is, its dominance in what he calls the most strategic bit of the rare earth supply chain, the heavy minerals used in advanced defence systems.
China's suspension of its export curbs on rare earths was likely something that Washington prioritised, Bedford says.
As well as reducing tariff rates, China's focus was on easing restrictions related to the US's Entity List – specifically, the 50% rule the US introduced last month, targeting subsidiaries of foreign firms on the list, mostly Chinese ones.
The enhanced restrictions would have exposed many Chinese firms to "much tougher US export controls" and made global companies "far more cautious about doing business with them", the analyst says.
Laura Bicker
China correspondent, reporting from Busan
We're waiting for clarity on quite a lot of things.
When we heard Donald Trump say a trade deal between the two countries will be signed "pretty soon", for me that underscored exactly what went on.
On Air Force One, the US president was pretty bullish – it sounded like the deal had been done.
But there is no ink on paper – and that is the crucial part right now.
First of all, when it comes to those rare earth metals, Beijing has for now decided to relinquish its chokehold.
But China has realised the hold that it has on the US and the rest of the world.
How much is it willing to relinquish? That's not something I've seen in the Chinese readout.
It's also really interesting when you listen to Chinese state media, where the reaction is much more subdued.
President Xi, according to state media, has urged both sides to talk more as soon as possible. That is not a done deal.
Is it a breakthrough though? Yes. Both sides have finally managed to get together – and stepped back from the brink of a global trade war.
But there's still much to be done before a deal is signed.
We mentioned in our previous post – as well as many others earlier – that China has a dominant position in rare earths. Here’s a bit more on what that means.
What are they
A group of metals with unique properties that are crucial for making high-tech components in things like phones, cars, computers and weapons.
Let's get technical
There are 17 chemically similar metallic elements known as rare earths, including cerium, which is used in catalytic converters and neodymium, which is used to make magnets for computers. They are not to be confused with critical minerals like lithium and nickel.
Rare because?
While actually widespread, it's rare to find rare earths in high concentrations. That makes mining challenging, and the processing needed to make usable materials out of them is complex and polluting.
Who is producing them?
China accounts for about 61% of rare earths production and 92% of processing – a near monopoly, according to the International Energy Agency's estimation.
The US-China dispute
As the US and China compete economically, diplomatically and militarily, control of these essential materials has become a key bargaining chip.
Earlier, China indicated it had been given assurances the US would suspend expanded restrictions for companies on the Entity List. We haven't had confirmation from Washington yet, but here's why China is pushing for this.
What are the restrictions about? Foreign firms placed on the Entity List face restrictions on receiving US exports. In September, the US tightened these rules to include subsidiaries at least 50% owned by any company on the Entity List. This exponentially increased the number of businesses that US companies would need licences to export to.
Why are the restrictions in place? The US wants to target foreign countries, especially China, it says are circumventing export curbs on chip-making equipment and other technology.
How did China respond at the time? Beijing criticised the move, saying it "severely disrupts" international trade. In response, China tightened its export controls on rare earths – an industry it dominates.
What has happened today? According to China's commerce ministry, the US will suspend the expanded restrictions for a year after talks between US and Chinese officials. In return, China will suspend the export controls it announced earlier this month on rare earths and other goods.Laura Bicker
China correspondent, reporting from Busan
I was watching the body language on the screen during the meeting – and it was very different between President Xi and President Trump.
Xi stayed very professional, and said what he had prepared. Whereas Trump was very much more ad lib.
It was all carefully choreographed.
At the end of the meeting, Xi's car was waiting outside – so it looked like Trump had to usher him to his car, where his team was waiting.
I was outside with the Chinese supporters – it seemed the embassy had organised some flag waving.
They were telling each flag bearer when to wave their flags when the Chinese president passed.
That gives you an idea of the two different styles here.
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