Trump threatens ‘massive’ China tariffs, sees ‘no reason’ to meet with Xi

President Donald Trump has called off efforts to arrange a meeting with President Xi Jinping after China tightened export controls on rare earth minerals this week. 

“Some very strange things are happening in China!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “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.”

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” Trump added. 

“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.”

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Trump canceled plans for a potential meeting with Xi after China moved to tighten export controls on rare earth minerals this week. (Pedro Pardo – Pool/Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The president said his relationship with China over the past six months has been “very good” and called the crackdown on exports “surprising.” 

“I have always felt that they’ve been lying in wait, and now, as usual, I have been proven right!” he added. 

The administration had suggested Trump might meet Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit later this month in South Korea, but “now there seems to be no reason to do so,” he said.

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Over the past few decades, China has captured a dominant position in the rare earth minerals and magnets industry and now uses that control — vital for electronics worldwide — as political leverage.

“Some very strange things are happening in China!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “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.” (Reuters)

“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, starting with the ‘Magnets’ and, other Elements that they have quietly amassed into somewhat of a Monopoly position, a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least,” Trump added. 

The world’s two largest economies have been locked in trade negotiations for months, imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on each other.

China announced Thursday it is expanding export controls on five additional rare earth metals — holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium — adding to the seven restricted in April.

China also restricted exports of technology used to refine rare earth minerals.

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China cracked down on exports of five more minerals on Thursday.  (Sergei Bobylev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

China cited national security concerns for the restrictions. “Rare-earth-related items have dual-use properties for both civilian and military applications. Implementing export controls on them is an international practice,” a Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson said.

Rare earth metals are essential for both commercial goods — including electric cars, household appliances, lithium batteries and camera lenses — and critical to the U.S. defense industry.

Rare earths are also used to produce semiconductors vital for artificial intelligence processing.

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As of 2024, China mines about 60 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals and processes nearly 90 percent, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Trump administration has invested heavily in domestic rare earth mining and processing to reduce U.S. dependence on China.