Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
The United States has warned China that it must respect the terms of Donald Trump’s trade truce with Xi Jinping in Busan last year, amid frustration over Beijing’s failure to meet its export commitments for rare earths and other products.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer delivered the message in a phone call Friday morning with He Lifeng, the Chinese vice premier in charge of trade negotiations with Washington.
“Secretary Bessent highlighted the importance of China fully and immediately implementing its commitments made at Busan and expressed concerns about recent Chinese actions,” Treasury said in a statement obtained by the FT.
“He stressed that continued progress depends on concrete results and that the United States will closely evaluate China’s implementation of the agreement,” the statement added.
The Busan ceasefire, agreed in the South Korean port city in October 2025, expires on January 10. When Xi visited Washington in September, both sides extended the original deadline by two months, to January 2027, after negotiators failed to resolve differences between the countries.
A U.S. official said Bessent and Greer made it clear that Trump considered the situation a “priority” and that China must meet its commitments at Busan.
In an article on »
The warning comes two weeks before Trump and Xi are scheduled to meet in Shenzhen, where China is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The FT reported last week that Xi could hold a trilateral meeting with Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The trade issue is not expected to make up much of the Trump-Xi meeting in Shenzhen, but it will certainly be discussed in more detail when the U.S. and Chinese presidents meet at the G20 in Miami in December.
Bessent and Greer are expected to meet their Chinese counterparts in person at some point between Apec and the G20.
In September, US officials told the FT that China was meeting only two-thirds of its Busan commitment on rare earths. A person familiar with the matter said Beijing has not increased supplies of rare earths since Bessent raised concerns directly with He in New York in September, before Xi’s meeting in Washington with Trump.
China has rejected US claims that it will not meet its commitments on rare earths. The United States concluded that China was fulfilling its promises to purchase soybeans but had failed to fulfill its promises for other agricultural products.
The United States is also concerned about Chinese restrictions on the export of yttrium, a rare earth essential for everything from jet engines to missiles, to Japan, which produces components for U.S.-made products. Japanese companies have warned their government that stocks are dangerously low.
Craig Singleton, an expert on U.S.-China relations at the think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Treasury’s warning to Beijing was “pretty sharp diplomatic language.”
“Washington does not appear willing to negotiate new concessions until Beijing respects its existing commitments,” he added. “If the two sides cannot even agree on what they have already promised, extending the truce could prove considerably more complicated. »
The Chinese embassy in Washington said Beijing would issue a statement on the call “in due course.”
“The two sides should move in the same direction, adhere to mutual benefits and win-win results, and promote the continuous and steady development and improvement of China-US economic and trade relations,” said Liu Chang, embassy spokesperson.
Gn headline
