US President Donald Trump has reached an agreement with President Xi Jinping to reduce tariffs on China in exchange for Beijing cracking down on the fentanyl trade, resuming US soyabean purchases and maintaining rare earths exports.

Trump’s face-to-face talks with Xi in the South Korean city of Busan, their first since 2019, came at the end of the US President’s Asia trip on which he also claimed trade deals with South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asian nations, the 30 October report said.

“It was an amazing meeting,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One shortly after he left Busan.

According to a BBC report on 30 October, Beijing’s response – in the form of an official readout – was less specific, saying they had reached a consensus to resolve “major trade issues”.

Trump said tariffs on Chinese imports would be cut to 47% from 57% by halving the rate of tariffs related to trade in fentanyl precursor drugs to 10%.

China agreed to pause export controls announced this month on rare earths.

In addition to trimming fentanyl tariffs, Beijing had sought an easing of export controls on sensitive US technology and a rollback of new US port fees on Chinese vessels aimed at reducing China’s global dominance in shipbuilding, ocean freight and logistics.

At the time of the report, Trump had not commented on US concessions but said China would buy “tremendous amounts” of US soyabeans and other agricultural products “starting immediately”.

Prior to the summit, China had bought its first cargoes of US soyabeans in several months.

The White House had signalled it hoped the summit would be the first of several between the leaders in the year ahead, with Trump saying he would travel to China in April before receiving Xi in the USA.

The announcement will be welcome news for US soyabean farmers who have had few sales to China since the start of the 2025/26 marketing year on 1 September.

According to data from China’s General Administration of Customs, China did not import any soyabeans from the USA in September, compared to 1.7M tonnes in the same month in 2024.

China has traditionally bought most of its soyabeans from the USA in the September-November window, which coincides with the US harvest but had turned to Brazil and other South American countries for most of its soyabean supply in recent months, according to a 21 October World Grain report.

Since Trump took office in January for his second term as president, he had introduced and threatened to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from overseas on various countries, claiming the policy would help boost US manufacturing and jobs, theBBC wrote.

The steepest levies he had threatened had been levelled at China. Beijing had hit back with measures of its own, although the two nations had agreed to hold off implementing the levies while pursuing a trade deal, the report said.

However, earlier in October Trump had said he would impose an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods from November in response to China tightening restrictions on exports of rare earths.