Busan, South Korea: US President Donald Trump has lauded an “amazing” meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea at the end of his whistle-stop tour of Asia, saying it had resulted in a trade deal that would see the US halve fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese goods, effective immediately.
The deal will also see China resume soybean purchases and pause its rare-earths licensing regime for at least a year, Trump said.
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Busan on Thursday.Credit: AP
“I guess, on the scale from zero to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was at a 12,” Trump said. “You know, just the whole relationship is very, very important. I think it was very good.”
The president’s comments to reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington DC after a meeting that lasted one hour and 40 minutes indicated that the leaders had largely formalised a framework agreement struck at the weekend by Chinese and US officials in Malaysia. China has not yet publicly released information about the talks.
As they sat down with their delegations to begin talks, Xi told Trump via a translator it was normal for the two leading economies of the world to have frictions now and then. A few days ago, trade negotiators for both countries reached a “fundamental consensus on addressing each other’s primary concerns”, Xi said. “I am willing to continue working with President Trump to lay a solid foundation for China-US relations,” he added.
Just before Trump walked into the meeting in Busan, on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in nearby Gyeongju, Trump declared on social media that he had ordered the United States to restart nuclear weapons testing, after Russia announced trials of a nuclear-powered underwater drone and nuclear-capable cruise missile.
Trump and Xi sit down to begin talks in Busan.Credit: Getty Images
“Because of other countries’ testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately,” Trump wrote in a social media post before his meeting with Xi.
Such a test would be seen in Russia and China as a deliberate assertion of US strategic power. The US’s last nuclear explosive test was in 1992, though it continues to test delivery systems – including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and bombers – with mock weapons. Russia has not conducted nuclear tests since 1990, while China’s last test was 1996, according to the United Nations.
