A truce instead of a treaty: the US and China only postponed a new escalation

IN South Korea a meeting took place between Donald Trump And Xi Jinpinglasting 1 hour 40 minutes. After the negotiations, Trump immediately left the country without making official statements. He later wrote on his social network that the meeting was held “12 out of 10 possible”.

The main result was an agreement to reduce by 50% the additional duty imposed against China for smuggling fentanyl. Thus, the total tariff on Chinese imports, according to Trump, will now be 47% instead of 57%.

China, in response, promised to strengthen control of fentanyl flows in the USA, resume purchases soybeans from American farmers and maintain exports rare earth metals to the United States. As a political gesture, the parties agreed that Trump would visit China in April, and Si will respond with a visit to the US later.

Beijing is restrained, Washington is loud

The Chinese side’s statement was much more cautious. Beijing said the two countries’ “economic and trade teams have reached consensus in principle on key issues.” The rest of the wording was limited to standard diplomatic expressions about “shared responsibility for peace and stability.”

Against the backdrop of Trump’s statements, this looked like a deliberate cooling of rhetoric: China did not confirm the details of the agreements on duties and fentanyl, limiting itself to a promise “continue constructive dialogue”.

A year-long “truce”

As Trump clarified, the validity period of the new agreements will be one year. The deal has not yet been signed, but, according to the American leader, “this could happen very soon.” Experts call this format temporary economic truceaimed at avoiding a sharp escalation before the start of 2026.

Political observers note that the document does not contain real mechanisms for resolving trade disputes and essentially repeats the logic of the previous “peaceful pauses” during the first trade war between the United States and China.

Without sensations – but with relief

Despite loud statements, the meeting did not bring a breakthrough. Washington and Beijing remain at odds over technology controls, currency restrictions and intellectual property rights. However, both sides achieved the main thing – they avoided a new round of escalation, which could push the world economy to new crisis.

Analysts agree: US-China trade war continues, it’s just that now it has entered a “polite phase” – with smiles, tweets and year-long pauses between new barriers.

Comment from Trump regarding dialogue with Xi on Ukraine

“Ukraine was discussed very seriously. We talked about it for a long time. And we are both going to work together to see if we can achieve something. We agree that the sides are stuck and fighting. Sometimes they just have to be allowed to fight, I guess. Crazy. But he is going to help us, and we will work together on the Ukraine issue. There is a lot we can’t do. They have been buying oil from Russia for a long time, it covers a large part of China’s needs. And, you know, I can say that India is doing very right in this plan. But we didn’t particularly discuss oil. We talked about trying to end this war together.”

Threatening China with sanctions for buying Russian oil on social networks while sitting in the oval office is one thing, but we didn’t particularly discuss oil when we met face to face with Xi. Plus the recognition that the United States is not omnipotent when it comes to war (sometimes it just has to be allowed to fight).

In general, the result of the Trump-Xi meeting is more than modest.

It is very clear that the aging superpower is no longer able, as before, to outmaneuver its main geopolitical opponent and is forced to take into account its current capabilities. This a new role for the country and a difficult experience for Donny. No wonder he looked like this when he left Korea sad.

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