White House says US reaches ‘understanding’ with China on rare earth shipments
With his Commerce and Treasury secretaries close by, US president says ‘we just signed with China yesterday’
The United States and China reached a “framework” agreement on how to facilitate rare earth shipments, implementing a deal based on bilateral trade talks that started last month in Geneva, Switzerland, the White House said.
“The administration and China agreed to an additional understanding for a framework to implement the Geneva agreement,” a White House official said. The understanding focuses on “how we can implement expediting rare earths shipments to the U.S. again”.
Speaking in a Bloomberg interview, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explained that China is “going to deliver rare earths to us” and once they do that, “we’ll take down our countermeasures”.
“Everybody, everybody wants to make a deal and have a part of it, right? I know [US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer] and [Commerce Secretary] Howard [Lutnick] and [Treasury Secretary] Scott [Bessent] are working overtime, making deals with other countries,” he said.
05:19
How are Chinese citizens feeling the effects of the US-China tariff war?
“You remember a few months ago, the press was saying, ‘Do you really have anybody of any interest?’ Well, we just signed with China yesterday, right?”