The U.S. and China agree to $60 billion in tariff cuts on products like dolls and fireworks. Rare earths remain a sticking point.

By Victor Reklaitis

There were no major breakthroughs on big issues including AI, Iran and Taiwan

Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded his state visit to Washington, D.C., on Friday.

The Trump administration and its Chinese counterpart have offered details about a "board of trade" plan that delivers tariff cuts for limited sets of products, but there wasn't much progress on other issues during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington, D.C., which wrapped up on Friday.

For Chinese products that are imported into the U.S., 77 types of goods have been put forward to score lower tariffs, including fireworks, plastic tableware, bed and table linens, certain appliances, inflatable balls for sports and toys such as dolls and puzzles.

The total value of these goods is $30 billion, matching the $30 billion worth of American goods that Beijing is proposing to have lower tariffs on, such as medical equipment and a range of agricultural products. Overall U.S. trade with China last year was worth about $500 billion.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer described the products involved as "non-sensitive goods" that could "benefit from more favorable tariff treatment in the future." Last week, Greer had promised there would be "a small subset of goods that we can just keep aside from any trade disputes."

Many analysts had predicted that the deliverables from the Trump-Xi summit would be modest, and as it turns out, they were correct.

"The Trump-Xi meeting largely played out as expected, producing no major breakthrough but, more importantly, no breakdown in the trade truce that has stabilized the bilateral relationship over the past year," Raymond James analysts led by Ed Mills said in a note.

"The most impactful outcome" was a deal to extend an existing trade truce by two months to Jan. 10, the Raymond James team added, but Beijing and Washington ended up leaving "other issues around tariffs, technology, Taiwan and AI unresolved."

One small step forward for artificial intelligence was an agreement to set up a hotline for the countries to alert each other about AI incidents that could affect national security.

"Expectations for the Trump-Xi summit were modest, and the meeting largely delivered what those modest expectations promised: a continued trade war truce, additional economic mechanisms, limited cooperation on fentanyl and AI, and an effort to stabilize the broader relationship," said Bonnie Glaser, managing director for the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, in a note that provided a scorecard for the summit.

"Trump obtained some concrete commitments, but several of his most consequential objectives - reliable rare-earth supplies, greater Chinese pressure on Iran, progress on detained Americans, and trilateral arms-control talks - remain unresolved," she noted, referring to possible trilateral negotiations between China, Russia and the United States.

The Trump administration readout following the summit said the two countries "continue to work on U.S. concerns regarding supply chain shortages related to rare earths and other critical minerals, with the goal of ensuring shipment levels return to appropriate levels."

-Victor Reklaitis

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09-28-26 1415ET