Updated October 30, 2025 at 1:25 AM EDT
GYEONGJU, South Korea — President Trump said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have already agreed to many points in trade negotiations. But after the two leaders sat down for a meeting at a South Korean air base in Busan, it's unclear how secure any trade deal between the two is.
The leaders spoke for about an hour and 40 minutes Thursday, and left without giving remarks. Trump headed straight to Air Force One as planned, traveling back to Washington after nearly a week in the Indo-pacific region.
Just about an hour before the meeting, Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. would conduct testing on nuclear weapons "on an equal basis" with Russia and China, though it's not entirely clear what that would mean. The announcement could mark a reversal of decades of policy.
The U.S. has not conducted a test of a nuclear weapon since 1992. Instead, it uses scientific experiments and computer simulations to make sure its bombs still work. The voluntary test moratorium has been in place since the end of the Cold War, as part of an effort to maintain nuclear stability. The U.S. is not prepared to conduct a nuclear test in the near term, and Russia and China haven't tested nuclear weapons in decades either — though both nations have been modernizing their arsenals in recent years.
They opened with optimism
Trump and Xi gave brief positive remarks ahead of their meeting.
"President Xi is a great leader of a great country, and I think we're going to have a fantastic relationship for a long period of time," Trump said at the top of the meeting, calling Xi a friend.
It's the first time Trump and Xi have spoken in person in six years. Xi noted in his remarks, through an interpreter, that the two have spoken on the phone three times and exchanged several letters since Trump was reelected last year.
Xi said to Trump it was "normal" that the U.S. and China have "frictions" in their relations from time to time but said amid challenges, "You and I at the helm of China-U.S. relations should stay the right course."
"China and the U.S. should be partners and friends. This is what history has taught us and what reality demands," Xi said.
Xi also said he appreciated Trump for his contributions in the ceasefire agreement in the Middle East, and said Trump cares "a lot about world peace."
He also mentioned Trump's recent trip to Malaysia for the ASEAN summit, where Trump presided over a signing of a peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand. Trump has been adamant that China played no role in procuring the ceasefire, but Xi said that "China's been helping our own way" to end the border dispute there.
What was on the table
The president confidently said for days he would reach a trade deal with Xi.
"I think we're gonna have a deal, I think it will be a good deal for both, and that's really a great result," Trump told a lunch meeting of APEC business executives in the southern city of Gyeongju.
"That's better than fighting and going through all sorts of problems," he added ahead of the Thursday meeting with Xi. "No reason for it."
Trump said earlier this week that he could reduce tariffs on Chinese goods in exchange for a commitment from Beijing to curb exports of chemicals used to make fentanyl.
"I expect to be lowering that because I believe that they're going to help us with the fentanyl situation," Trump told reporters en route to Gyeongju. "They're going to be doing what they can do."
The U.S. currently imposes a 20% tariff on Chinese imports, in addition to other tariffs, because the U.S. government believes China has not done enough to restrict fentanyl precursor exports.
In response, Beijing imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans. U.S. and Chinese economic officials met over the weekend in Malaysia to build the framework of a trade deal that would include China resuming purchases of U.S. soybeans.
The deal would also include China delaying the imposition of export restrictions on rare earths, while the U.S. would hold off on raising tariffs by 100%.
Where the tension lies
At the same time, both Beijing and Washington have been trading accusations that the other side's economic coercion is wreaking havoc on the global economy.
"This is China versus the world," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said about China's rare earth export controls this month. "They have pointed a bazooka at the supply chains and the industrial base of the entire free world, and we're not going to have it," he said.
"The U.S. has raised tariffs so high that it's brought globalization to the verge of breakdown," said Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Studies at Nanjing University in China.
He notes that besides tariffs, the U.S. has raised port fees this month on Chinese-owned or operated ships docking at U.S. ports. It has suggested controls on U.S. exports of software to China.
And it has proposed barring Chinese air carriers headed to and from the U.S. from flying through Russian airspace. China's airlines have a cost advantage, because Russia allows Chinese carriers to transit their airspace, but not U.S. ones.
"You can make China accept your rise in tariffs. But you can't keep overwhelmingly pounding on China so hard," he said. "China's retaliation is to show China and the world that the U.S. can't just keep us cornered," Zhu added.
NPR's Geoff Brumfiel contributed to this report.
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