President Donald Trump appeared to announce on Friday that he will no longer meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on his trip to Asia, possibly endangering recent talks on a bilateral trade agreement with Beijing.
In a Friday post on Truth Social, Trump slammed China’s recent imposition of tougher export controls on rare earth minerals, set to take effect in December, in an apparent effort to gain a negotiating advantage over the Trump administration. The decision could upend supply chains for American technology companies, which still source the vast majority of the rare earth metals and minerals required for chip production from China.
“Some very strange things are happening in China! They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to Countries throughout the World, that they want to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China,” Trump said. “Our relationship with China over the past six months has been a very good one, thereby making this move on Trade an even more surprising one. I have always felt that they’ve been lying in wait, and now, as usual, I have been proven right! There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time.”
As for canceling the meeting, Trump added that he has “not spoken to President Xi because there was no reason to do so.”
“This was a real surprise, not only to me, but to all the Leaders of the Free World. I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so,” he said.
White House officials did not say whether Trump’s comments meant the meeting was off or simply a threat that he might skip out on the planned event.
WHAT WILL TRUMP’S ULTIMATE LEGACY BE: PEACEMAKER OR ‘DISRUPTOR’?
Trump also said China’s decision to alert trading partners of the new trade restrictions was “especially inappropriate,” as Beijing announced them amid the Trump administration’s efforts to advance a ceasefire in Gaza.
“Dependent on what China says about the hostile ‘order’ that they have just put out, I will be forced, as President of the United States of America, to financially counter their move,” Trump concluded. “One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America. There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration.”
, 2025-10-10 16:01:00, 
, Washington Examiner, %%https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon.png?w=32, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Christian Datoc
