China to suspend some rare earth curbs, probes on U.S. chip firms

The White House issued a fact sheet on Saturday detailing some of the details of the trade agreement that president Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to earlier this week that aims to ease tensions between the world’s largest economies.

Under the agreement, China will issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earth elements, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of American end users and their suppliers around the world,” the White House said, effectively removing restrictions China imposed in April 2025 and October 2022. The United States and China previously said Beijing would suspend further restrictive controls announced in October 2025 for one year.

Washington will also pause some of Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on China for an additional year, and halt plans to implement a 100% tariff on Chinese exports to the United States that were threatened in November. The White House also said the US would also extend the expiration of certain Section 301 tariff exemptions, which are currently set to expire on November 29, 2025, until November 10, 2026.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

The historic summit between Trump and Xi, their first direct meeting during the US president’s second term, witnessed the two leaders stabilizing relations in the short term after an escalating trade battle that shook the markets and raised fears of a global slowdown.

Under their agreement, according to the White House, China agreed to stop comprehensive controls on rare earth magnets in exchange for the United States agreeing to back off expanding restrictions on Chinese companies. China has used its dominance in processing rare earth minerals as leverage, threatening to restrict their flow to the United States and allied countries.

The United States also agreed to halve the tariffs associated with fentanyl from 20% to 10%, while Beijing will resume purchases of US soybeans and other agricultural products. The United States said that China will buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans during the current season, and at least 25 million metric tons annually over the next three years. Trump indicated on Friday that he would like to remove all tariffs related to fentanyl if China continues to crack down on exports of the drug and the primary chemicals used to manufacture it.

Read more: Trump-Xi truce buys time as both seek leverage in broader fight

“Once we see that, we’ll get rid of the other 10%,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.

The United States also said on Saturday that Beijing would take steps to allow the Chinese facilities of Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV to resume shipments, confirming a Bloomberg report from the previous day. The move is likely to ease concerns over chip shipments that have threatened auto production as the trade battle between China and the United States escalates.

But while the agreement has calmed tensions, the agreement may serve as a short-term truce in a protracted trade battle with measures meant to last only one year. Although some key issues were addressed – and with both sides winning key concessions – the agreement failed to comprehensively address all of the issues that lie at the heart of the US-China trade war and other geopolitical flashpoints such as Taiwan and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Trump signed a plan for a US consortium to buy ByteDance Ltd’s US operations of TikTok, but Beijing has not yet formally approved this sale. The US President also said there would be energy cooperation, saying China had agreed to buy oil and gas from Alaska.