China to suspend some rare earth curbs, probes on US chip firms: White House
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Under the deal, China will issue general licences valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – China will effectively suspend implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminate investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced.
The White House issued a fact sheet on Nov 1 outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier this week
Under the deal, China will issue general licences valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers around the world”, the White House said, meaning the effective removal of controls China imposed in April 2025 and October 2022.
The US and China previously said Beijing would suspend more restrictive controls announced in October 2025 for one year.
Washington will also pause some of Mr Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on China for an additional year and is halting plans to implement a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese exports to the US that was threatened for November.
The White House also said that the US will further extend the expiration of certain Section 301 tariff exclusions, currently due to expire on Nov 29, 2025, until Nov 10, 2026.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Nov 1.
The landmark summit between Mr Trump and Mr Xi, their first face-to-face meeting of the US President’s second term, saw the leaders stabilise relations in the short term after an escalating trade fight that had roiled markets and sparked fears of a global downturn.
Under their agreement, according to the White House, China agreed to pause sweeping controls on rare earth magnets in exchange for a US agreement to roll back an expansion of curbs on Chinese companies. China had used its dominance in the processing of rare earth minerals as leverage, threatening to restrict their flow to the US and allied countries.
The US also agreed to halve a fentanyl-related tariff to 10 per cent from 20 per cent, while Beijing will resume purchases of American soya beans and other agricultural products. The US has said China will buy 12 million metric tons of soya beans during the current season, and a minimum of 25 million metric tons a year for the next three years.
Mr Trump on Oct 31 indicated he would like to remove all of the fentanyl-related tariffs if China continued to crack down on exports of the drug and precursor chemicals used to make it.
“As soon as we see that, we’ll get rid of the other 10 per cent,” Mr Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Oct 31.
The US also said on Nov 1 that Beijing will take steps to allow the Chinese facilities of Dutch chipmaker Nexperia to resume shipments, confirming a Bloomberg report from a day earlier.
This move will likely ease worries about chip shipments that had threatened auto production as a trade fight between China and the US escalated.
But while the agreement has calmed tensions, the pact may be a short-term truce in an extended trade fight, with the measures meant to last just one year.
Despite addressing some key issues – and with both sides winning key concessions – the agreement fails to comprehensively address all of the issues at the heart of the US-China trade fight and other geopolitical flashpoints such as Taiwan and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Mr Trump has signed off on a plan that would see an American consortium buy the US operations of ByteDance’s TikTok app, but Beijing has yet to formally approve that sale.
The US President has also said there would be cooperation on energy, and that China had agreed to purchase oil and gas from Alaska. BLOOMBERG
