Trump says he's cutting fentanyl tariffs, rare earths dispute 'settled' after meeting with Xi

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told Trump during their private lunch that her government was considering purchasing American vehicles, including Ford F-150 pickup trucks, for government work, according to a Japanese official briefed on the conversation and a senior White House official. 

No such procurement has yet been ordered, according to the Japanese official, and a spokesperson for Ford tells NBC News there have been “no new developments.”

Ahead of Trump’s visit to Japan earlier this week, speculation had grown that Tokyo might buy a small number of Ford F-150s as part of a purchase package designed to win favor with the U.S. president, even though the trucks are generally considered too big for Japanese streets.

As President Donald Trump makes his whirlwind trip through Asia, the warning from the mayor of South Korea’s steelmaking hub is dire.

“If tariffs keep continuing like this,” Lee Kang-deok told NBC News in an interview Tuesday, “the industry in our city will collapse. And it’s going to have a domino effect.”

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Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, appeared to be the only woman representing either the U.S. or China at Trump’s meeting today with Chinese President Xi Jinping.Xi, whose Politburo has no women among its 24 members for the first time in 20 years, called for greater representation of women in politics and government at a global women’s summit in Beijing earlier this month.

Along with Wiles, the other officials representing the U.S. were U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

Trump has responded to criticism by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer that his Asia trip was a “total dud,” calling it “almost treasonous.”

“President Trump is about to congratulate himself, patting himself hard on the back, for cleaning up a mess that he created,” Schumer said on the Senate floor yesterday, referring to trade talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Rather than using his visit to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea to “make progress with America’s vital trading partners,” Schumer said, Trump’s trip “has been a total dud.”

In a Truth Social post, Trump said he “Worked really hard, 24/7, took in Trillions of Dollars, and Chuck Schumer said trip was ‘a total dud,’ even though he knows it was a spectacular success. Words like that are almost treasonous!!!”

The U.S. is postponing its investigation into Chinese shipbuilding, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said.

“We’re going to postpone that while we negotiate with them about that issue,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One after Trump’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“We’re trying to rebuild shipbuilding,” Greer said, noting that South Korea, which along with China is one of the world’s top shipbuilders, has agreed to allocate $150 billion to shipbuilding cooperation with the U.S., where the industry has slowed significantly in recent decades.

“We think we have a good path forward,” he said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told Trump at their meeting today that the U.S. and China should maintain “communication at all levels” to avoid a “vicious cycle of retaliation.”

In their first in-person meeting since Trump returned to the White House, Xi said he was “willing” to continue working with the U.S. president to resolve the recent “twists” in trade relations between the world’s two biggest economies, according to a readout released by Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency.

“Trade should remain the ballast and propeller of China-U.S. relations, not a stumbling block or source of conflict,” Xi said, urging both Beijing and Washington to “focus on the bigger picture” and follow up on the consensus reached during previous trade talks.

Xi also assured Trump that China “never seeks to challenge or replace any one, but focuses on doing our own work well.”

Trump said he had ordered the Pentagon to resume nuclear weapons testing because other countries were doing so.

“It had to do with others,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “They seem to all be nuclear testing.”

“We have more nuclear weapons than anybody,” said Trump, who announced his order on Truth Social shortly before his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We don’t do testing. We’ve halted it years, many years ago. But with others doing testing, I think it’s appropriate that we do also.”

The U.S. last tested a nuclear weapon in 1992.

Trump said Xi had agreed to a one-year reprieve on China’s export curbs on rare earth materials that is likely to be “routinely extended.”

China has a near-monopoly on the production and processing of rare earths, which are key components for magnets in everything from turbines to electric vehicles, and has used them as a powerful bargaining chip in trade talks with the U.S.

“We have a deal. Now every year we’ll renegotiate the deal,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “All of the rare earth has been settled, and that’s for the world,” he said.

A White House official standing alongside Trump said that he and Xi had come to “an understanding,” and that China is “not going to impose the rare earth controls that they proposed.”

Trump made no mention of TikTok after his meeting with Xi, despite earlier signals from the White House that they might finalize an agreement on the sale of the Chinese-owned app’s U.S. operations.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One after leaving South Korea, Trump said he would sign a trade deal with China “pretty soon,” but he did not say anything about TikTok.