U.S. President Donald Trump is hailing the latest trade framework with China as a game-changing breakthrough. Yet the deal he touted Wednesday represents little more than a reset back to earlier terms — and even that came at a cost.
After fresh negotiations in London, tariff rates remain essentially unchanged. Rare earth shipments from China are set to return to pre-April 2 conditions. Meanwhile, a slew of thornier issues, including trade imbalances and malign activity, remain unresolved.
While Trump cast the understanding as "GREAT” in a social media post on Thursday, his team acknowledged it largely formalized terms agreed to last month in Geneva, many of which are still shrouded in mystery. To seal the deal, the U.S. had to roll back a promised crackdown on visas for Chinese students. And the back-and-forth exposed that key U.S. industries are reliant on magnets largely sourced from China.
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