US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are poised to hold a high-stakes summit in South Korea on Thursday, as the world’s two largest economies struggle to resolve a protracted trade conflict that has upended global economy.
Tensions have flared again in recent weeks over Washington’s expansion of export controls and China’s tightening of rare earth export curbs. The tit-for-tat escalation prompted Trump to vow new 100% tariffs on Chinese goods starting November 1.
But the United States and China made apparent progress over the weekend after the latest round of trade talks in Malaysia. Their trade deal framework set the stage for a sit-down between Trump and Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO summit in South Korea. It will be the first in-person meeting between the two leaders since the American president returned to the White House in January. He last met Xi in 2019, during the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
Much is at stake. The November 10 deadline for a trade truce is looming, lest tariffs surge again. What ostensibly started as a war against the flow of the deadly opioid fentanyl has now ballooned into a far broader clash – spanning rare earths, American soybean exports, technology controls and China’s energy dealings with Russia.
Here are the issues likely to dominate the agenda:
