According to US President Donald Trump, China and the USA have generally agreed on reducing export restrictions on rare earths during new trade talks. The formal approval of himself and China’s head of state XI Jinping is still pending, Trump wrote on his online language tube Truth Social.
Representatives of both countries had negotiated in London. For China, Vice Prime Minister He Lifeng and Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao sat at the table during the negotiations. The United States sent US Finance Minister Scott Bessent and Minister of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
According to the US President, China undertakes to deliver certain raw materials such as rare earth to the United States. In return, Washington agreed that students from China would continue to be admitted to US universities. Trump also wrote that there was an agreement in the customs dispute between the world’s two largest economies. Trump wrote that the tariffs for imports from China to the USA will be 55 percent. China will impose criminal levies of 10 percent on goods from the United States, said the US President. The relationship is “excellent”.
Sign of relaxation
During the night it had already become known that the two largest economies on earth had agreed on a framework to implement the consensus that the presidents of both countries achieved in their phone call on June 5 and who had reached the negotiators at talks in Geneva in mid -May, said China’s negotiator for trade issues, the official news agency Xinhua. The trade conflict between Beijing and Washington has had serious consequences for the global economy for months.
With the end of the meeting, a way for further de -escalation had indicated in the tense trade relationships. Before the talks in London, China and the United States had spoken to each other in Geneva in mid -May for the first time since the escalation in the customs dispute. There, both sides agreed to temporarily reduce their tariffs for 90 days. Trump had increased the surcharges on goods from China to up to 145 percent in April. Beijing imposed export controls and moved to 125 percent with counter -tariffs on imports from the United States.
Chancellor Merz also hopes for solution with Americans
The US President has been a tough trade policy course against China since taking office. Despite the agreed agreement via a customs break in Geneva, the sound recently tightened again. Trump now let: “President XI and I will work closely together to open China for trade in America. That would be a great victory for both countries.”
Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the agreement between the USA and China to rare earths. “This is not at the expense of Europe, but that is another conflict that could be eliminated,” said Merz in Berlin after a meeting with the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. “I very much hope that we also succeed in reducing the trade conflicts with the Americans in a similar way and, if possible, eliminating.”
Focus on rare earths had emerged
The economic advisor Donald Trump, Kevin Hassett, had already indicated that the focus in London would be less on the mutual tariffs and more on Chinese export restrictions for rare earths. He had recently issued a fundamental agreement on this question as the goal of the discussions at the CNBC broadcaster. The People’s Republic controls around 90 percent of the global market for these raw materials and for special magnetic materials, he said.
U.S. President Trump had confident after a phone call with China’s state and party leader XI last week that China would resume the delivery of rare earths.
What are the consequences of export controls on rare earths
China dominates the world market for rare earths, which are very important for the production of many products. These are raw materials that industry needs, for example, for electric motors and sensors.
At the beginning of April, the People’s Republic in the customs dispute with the USA had seven rare earths and made -out magnets with export controls. As a result, companies had to have the export of these for electric motors, sensors and in the armaments industry urgently needed to have raw materials with elaborate applications approved. The restriction is very concerned about the restriction worldwide.
China is a main processor of the metals, but depends on high-tech products such as certain equipment for aircraft or chip design software from abroad. For Beijings, the United States had recently restricted the export of this technology to China.
