Trump says that "on a scale of 1 to 10, the meeting with Xi was a 12". How typical. Now, the key takeaways that Trump is alluding to so far are that:
- China tariffs are reduced from 57% to 47%
- Rare earth issue seems to be resolved, "no more roadblocks"
- Taiwan issue was not discussed
- Some discussion on China buying chips from Nvidia but nothing definitive
- Some agreement on trade that China will begin soybean purchases "immediately"
As far as everything goes, it just seems to be a slight reduction in tariffs while everything remains as per the status quo since May. On China's soybean purchases, I wouldn't buy into that as they made similar promises ever since 2018 but never delivered. And that's why we are still discussing the same issue time and time again.
Trump's tone itself doesn't sound as bullish and boastful as he usually does, at least from how I am reading it. And if that's the case, Beijing's tone will be even more cautious on promoting optimism from the talks today.
But after all the anticipation and noise surrounding their first face-to-face meeting since 2019, the end product seems to be rather underwhelming I would say.
