President Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping is set for Thursday in South Korea with a a weekend of advance talks creating optimism that compromise between the trade partners could be possible, Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reported Sunday.
“I believe we’ve reached a very substantial framework that will avoid [a tariff hike] and allow us to discuss that and many other things with the Chinese,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday morning on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Bessent said he does not anticipate that Trump’s promise of 100% additional tariffs on China will still go into effect on Nov. 1 as currently planned. Bessent added that he expects China will revive its purchases of US soybeans and delay its export restrictions on rare earths by a year.
Trump said on Sunday that the US and China are set to “come away with” a trade deal ahead of his meeting with Xi.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for President Xi and I think we’re going to come away with a deal”, Trump told reporters on Air Force One en route to Japan from Malaysia.
Chinese state media confirmed the weekend’s talks in Malaysia yielded progress describing a “basic consensuses on arrangements.”
The US and China have seen their fragile trade relationship wobble further in recent weeks, with Trump confirming last week that the countries are in a trade war.
Trump also signed a flurry of trade deals on trade and critical minerals with four Southeast Asian partners on Sunday. Trump, who is in Kuala Lumpur, signed reciprocal trade deals with his Malaysian and Cambodian counterparts, as well as a framework trade pact with Thailand.
Late Friday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced his agency was investigating “whether China has fully implemented its commitments under the Phase One Agreement, the burden or restriction on U.S. commerce resulting from any non-implementation by China of its commitments, and what action, if any, should be taken in response.”
Trump has floated a list of demands for China talks, citing rare earths, fentanyl, and soybeans as his top issues to address with Beijing.
Meanwhile, a spat over an ad featuring the late Ronald Reagan grew into an international incident with Trump threatening to raise tariffs on Canada by an additional 10%.
The ad, funded by the Ontario government and posted to X by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, includes excerpts from an address Reagan gave in 1987 in which he defended free trade and slammed tariffs as outdated.
Trump said Thursday he would immediately stop all trade negotiations with Canada due to the ad, calling Canada’s behavior “egregious.”