A landmark meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of an international summit in South Korea Thursday appears to have made major strides to resolve frictions in the volatile relationship between the world’s two largest economies and rival superpowers.
The two leaders had agreed on “almost everything” and reached a trade deal that could be signed “pretty soon,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One after wrapping up the highly anticipated meeting with Xi, which capped his five-day tour of Asia.
Xi also pointed to the “consensus” reached on resolving “important economic and trade issues” and called on the two sides to “refine and finalize follow-up work as soon as possible, uphold and implement the consensus, and deliver tangible results,” according to a Chinese readout.
“Economic and trade relations should continue to be the ballast and engine of Sino-US relations, not a stumbling block or point of conflict,” the Chinese leader said.
The two appeared to find common ground on their duelling export controls, with a readout from Beijing saying that the Chinese sides would suspend for one year the implementation of sweeping export controls on rare earth minerals, in exchange for the US hitting a one-year pause on a rule announced in September that would vastly expand the number of Chinese companies restricted from buying certain American technologies.
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