Donald Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, have agreed to a one-year freeze on more punitive tariffs at the heart of the ongoing trade war between the two superpowers. Among the issues discussed when the two leaders met face-to-face in the South Korean city of Busan were China’s hold on rare earth minerals and export restrictions on NVIDIA’s chips.
Trump had been making some explosive threats going forward to impose new tariffs on imports from China in retaliation for the XI’s tight grip on the exotic world, the processing of which is almost entirely controlled by China. These synthetic materials are essential in building everything from smartphones and EVs to military equipment. As part of (for now), China has reportedly agreed to temporarily suspend new measures for the next 12 months in exchange for Trump lowering Chinese tariffs by 10 percent.
In accordance with The New York TimesTrump said he discussed semiconductors during his XI speech, and “didn’t rule out” the possibility of allowing Nvidia to sell AI chips to China. The American company was allowed to resume selling H20 chips in China in July after the first ban in a year, only to be reported to have responded to its business with an impossible technology. The leaders were not discussing the availability of Blackloll Chips – NVIDIA’s most advanced AI chip so far in development and perhaps the driving factor in the Chinese architecture offering – at their meeting in South Korea.
There was also no decision on TikTok and its future in the US. The last we heard, the Trump Administration said they were close to a deal that would see us gain more ownership of social media, but nothing has been finalized at the time of writing.
