Donald Trump says rare earths dispute ‘settled’ after Xi Jinping meeting in South Korea – live updates | China

In case you’re just joining us, here’s a rundown on what happened at the high-stakes talks between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea.

Trump said afterwards that Washington’s dispute with Beijing over the supply of rare earths has been settled, China would resume buying US soybeans and Washington would reduce its tariffs on China.

Trump shook hands with Xi after their talks and boarded Air Force One to return to Washington, saying onboard that the meeting had been a “great success”.

He told reporters the Chinese leader had agreed to work “very hard” to prevent the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl – blamed for many American deaths – and in exchange the US would reduce fentanyl-linked tariffs from 20% to 10%, lowering the overall tariff burden from 57% to 47%.

Trump also said he would visit China in April and that Xi would come to the US some time afterwards.

In key developments:

• Xi said after the meeting that he and Trump had reached “consensus” on trade issues, Chinese state media reported. Xi said both sides should “finalise follow-up work as soon as possible, maintain and implement the consensus and provide tangible results to set minds at ease about the economies of China, the United States and the world”.

• Trump said they had agreed to work together on Ukraine, adding that the war “came up very strongly” as an issue. “We talked about it for a long time, and we’re both going to work together to see if we can get something.”

• Taiwan was not discussed at the meeting, Trump said. Earlier, both leaders ignored a question about the self-governing democracy, amid concern in Taipei that Trump may be willing to make concessions to Xi.

• Before the meeting at Gimhae airbase in Busan, South Korea – their first face-to-face meeting in six years – Trump and Xi shook hands in front of their countries’ flags and the US president said: “We’re going to have a very successful meeting.” He added: “He’s tough negotiator – that’s not good,” before patting the Chinese leader on the back.

• Trump had suggested before the meeting – at which their delegations faced each other across a negotiating table – that it could last three or four hours. The two leaders parted after one hour and 40 minutes.

• Xi said China and the US should “stay on the right course” and “be partners and friends” and should “work together to accomplish more great and concrete things for the good of our two countries and the whole world”.

• The optimism in Busan was in stark contrast to the recent exchanges of aggressive rhetoric over trade that had threatened to set the US and Chinese on an economic collision course, with potentially disastrous consequences globally. China’s yuan retreated from a near one-year high against the dollar on Thursday after the meeting met expectations but gave investors few new reasons for trade optimism.

• Minutes before meeting Xi, Trump said in a social media post that he had ordered the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons testing at the same level of China and Russia. He did not respond to a reporter’s question about the decision as he and Xi began their summit.
  With Justin McCurry and agencies