Trade pact between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping: a draw?

A look back at the program La semaine de l’éco broadcast on France 24 on October 31, 2025

On Friday, October 31, CAMILLE Verchery, Founder and Director of VVR International and Co-founder of Globallians, appeared on France 24‘s program “La semaine de l’écho,” which analyzed the meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.

On October 30, 2025, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in South Korea on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The meeting, which lasted more than an hour and a half, aimed to ease trade relations between Washington and Beijing and resulted in a truce in the trade war.

On the France 24 set, Elvire FABRY, Senior Researcher in Trade Geopolitics at the Jacques Delors Institute, Laure PALLEZ, Associate Director at the consulting firm Mascaret, Emmanuel VERON, Geographer, specialist in contemporary China and associate researcher at INALCO, and Camille VERCHERY discussed the meeting, seeking to determine whether or not this truce constitutes a “draw” in bilateral exchanges between the two countries and what impact it will have on global trade.

The strategic issues at the heart of the negotiations between the world’s two largest powers

Despite the absence of a joint statement, this first meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping since Donald Trump’s return to the White House led to several major advances:

Rare earths: a competitive advantage for China

Rare earths are now essential to Western industry, particularly for the manufacture of missiles, radars, aircraft engines, and high-tech products such as screens and electric cars. Despite their relatively widespread presence on the planet, China has a virtual monopoly on their processing, accounting for more than two-thirds of global production and controlling almost all of their refining, a situation resulting from a strategic choice made by Beijing more than 30 years ago. China had threatened to drastically restrict its exports in retaliation for US tariffs. But at the end of this meeting on October 30, 2025, a one-year renewable agreement was reached on the supply of rare earths.

On the European Union side, rare earths are also a major concern. To counter this structural imbalance, the European Union, through the Critical Mineral Act, is seeking to reduce its dependence by accelerating a strategy of diversification, securing supplies (through international partnerships), and developing refining and recycling. Nevertheless, Camille VERCHERY predicts that reindustrialization will be a long process if it does not rely on Chinese expertise.

Is this meeting a success for trade between China and the United States?

At the end of the meeting, Donald Trump announced a reduction in tariffs imposed on China from 57% to 47%. In return, China has committed to importing American soybeans again.

Another key element of the announced trade truce is the authorization for chip manufacturer Nvidia to export its chips to China. As a reminder, in the name of national security, the United States had recently restricted exports of Nvidia’s latest-generation chips to China. In retaliation, China asked its companies to stop importing Nvidia chips, causing Nvidia’s market share in China to collapse. This escalation in the trade war between the two countries had an immediate impact on major technology companies on both sides, illustrating the interdependence between the US and Chinese markets. The resumption of trade is therefore a significant victory for the technology industry.

Major structural economic and geopolitical issues

Beyond the truce agreed between the two powers, fundamental problems remain and will shape the future of international trade:

• Structural trade imbalance: the U.S. trade deficit with Beijing is huge ($439 billion in Chinese imports compared to less than $145 billion in U.S. exports last year). Nevertheless, the balance of trade justifies Beijing’s desire to remedy the situation. Chinese policy aims to move China towards greater self-sufficiency, while increasing its exports of the most sophisticated and innovative technologies (such as pharmaceutical molecules, AI, and robots) to the rest of the world.
• Interdependence between China and the United States: as the example of microchips shows, the two superpowers are highly interdependent economically, commercially, and technologically, which, once the show of force is over, requires seeking appeasement through dialogue.
• Europe’s position: Europe is caught in the middle of the Sino-American confrontation and is suffering the repercussions of this escalation. The main challenge for Europe is to find a path between economic resilience, strategic autonomy, and diplomatic consistency.

The meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on October 30, 2025, resulted in a trade truce that was beneficial to both countries, although trade imbalances persist and technological competition continues. Nevertheless, this agreement marks an important step in Sino-American trade relations and demonstrates a desire for appeasement.