President Donald Trump said Friday that tariffs never came up during his meetings this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, despite ongoing trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
“We didn’t discuss tariffs. It wasn’t brought up,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on his way back to Washington. “I would say we discussed almost everything except the reduction of tariffs.”
The comments followed Trump’s two-day summit in Beijing, which came after months of economic friction between the United States and China stemming from the administration’s “Liberation Day” tariff program announced in April 2025.
As the dispute escalated, American tariffs on Chinese imports climbed as high as 145%, prompting Beijing to retaliate with duties reaching 125% on U.S. products.
China also responded by imposing export restrictions on rare earth minerals and other critical materials used heavily in American technology and defense industries.
Despite those tensions, Trump and Xi ultimately reached a temporary one-year agreement under which China agreed to suspend the rare earth export limitations and strengthen oversight of fentanyl precursor chemicals.
In exchange, the United States agreed to reduce its elevated reciprocal tariffs back down to a baseline 10% rate through November.
Although the summit did not produce any additional tariff reductions, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said China has already started carrying out commitments to sharply expand purchases of American farm and energy products.
According to Greer, those agreements include a three-year arrangement for China to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans annually, along with purchases involving Alaskan energy supplies and American beef exports.
