Trade deal framework agreed ahead of Trump-Xi meeting

The USA and China suggest a trade deal is drawing closer as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping prepare for a high-stakes meeting in South Korea tomorrow.

- Chris Megerian, David Rising and Eileen Ng of the Associated Press report

A TRADE deal between the United States and China is drawing closer, officials from the world’s two largest economies said as they reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to aim to finalise during their high-stakes meeting.

Any agreement would be a relief to international markets even if it does not address underlying issues involving manufacturing imbalances and access to state-of-the-art computer chips.

Beijing recently limited exports of rare earth elements that are needed for advanced technologies, and Trump responded by threatening additional tariffs on Chinese products. The prospect of a widening conflict risked weakening economic growth worldwide.

China's top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, told reporters the two sides had reached a “preliminary consensus” while Trump's treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said there was “a very successful framework”

Trump also expressed confidence an agreement was at hand, saying the Chinese “want to make a deal and we want to make a deal”.

The Republican president is set to meet with Xi tomorrow in South Korea, the final stop of his trip through Asia.

Bessent told CBS’ Face the Nation that the threat of additional higher tariffs on China was “effectively off the table”.

In interviews on several American news shows, he said discussions with China yielded initial agreements to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl from coming into the US, and that Beijing would make “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural products while putting off export controls on rare earths.

When asked how close a deal was, Trump's trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said on “Fox News Sunday” that “it’s really going to depend” on the two presidents.