President Donald Trump speaks at an Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation CEO luncheon in Gyoeongju, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
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Mark Schiefelbein/AP
GYEONGJU, SOUTH KOREA – President Trump on Wednesday confidently predicted hanging a cope with China’s chief in a bilateral assembly on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Financial Discussion board, following a interval of commerce tensions which have threatened to escalate.
“I think we’re going have a deal, I think it will be a good deal for both, and that’s really a great result,” Trump informed a lunch assembly of APEC enterprise executives within the southern metropolis of Gyeongju.
“That’s better than fighting and going through all sorts of problems,” he added forward of the Thursday assembly with President Xi Jinping. “No reason for it.”
Trump mentioned that he might cut back tariffs on Chinese language items in trade for a dedication from Beijing to curb exports of chemical compounds used to make fentanyl.
“I expect to be lowering that because I believe that they’re going to help us with the fentanyl situation,” Trump informed reporters en path to Gyeongju. “They’re going to be doing what they can do.”
The U.S. at present imposes a 20% tariff on Chinese language imports, along with different tariffs, as a result of the U.S. authorities believes China has not executed sufficient to limit fentanyl precursor exports.
In response, Beijing imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans. U.S. and Chinese language financial officers met over the weekend in Malaysia to construct the framework of a commerce deal that would come with China resuming purchases of U.S. soybeans.
The deal would additionally embody China delaying the imposition of export restrictions on uncommon earths, whereas the U.S. would maintain off on elevating tariffs by 100%.
Each Beijing and Washington are buying and selling accusations that the opposite facet’s financial coercion is wreaking havoc on the worldwide economic system.
“This is China versus the world,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mentioned about China’s uncommon earth export controls this month. “They have pointed a bazooka at the supply chains and the industrial base of the entire free world, and we’re not going to have it,” he mentioned.
“The U.S. has raised tariffs so high that it’s brought globalization to the verge of breakdown,” says Zhu Feng, dean of the Faculty of Worldwide Research at Nanjing College in China.
He notes that apart from tariffs, the U.S. has raised port charges this month on Chinese language-owned or operated ships docking at U.S. ports. It has urged controls on U.S. exports of software program to China.
And it has proposed barring Chinese language air carriers headed to and from the U.S. from flying by means of Russian airspace. China’s airways have a value benefit, as a result of Russia permits Chinese language carriers to transit their airspace, however not U.S. ones.
“You can make China accept your rise in tariffs. But you can’t keep overwhelmingly pounding on China so hard,” he says. “China’s retaliation is to show China and the world that the U.S. can’t just keep us cornered,” Zhu provides.
Trump has additionally talked about that he desires to debate nuclear arms management with Xi, and presumably embody China in U.S.-Russia nuclear arms management negotiations.
Regardless of hypothesis that Trump may attempt to revive nuclear negotiations with North Korean chief Kim Jong Un on this journey, that now appears off the desk.
Trump informed South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at first of bilateral talks that talks with Xi have been his major aim. “We’re looking forward to seeing him [Xi], and that was our focus, really, for this visit.”
Trump informed Lee he was conscious that the 2 Koreas stay technically in a state of struggle, and guaranteed Lee that “we will see what we can do to get that straightened out. You know that I’ll be working on this very hard.”
As Trump was visiting South Korea, Pyongyang mentioned it had carried out profitable cruise missile exams.
