US President Donald Trump said he had struck a deal to reduce tariffs on China on Thursday in exchange for Beijing resuming US soybean purchases, keeping rare earths exports flowing and cracking down on the illicit trade of fentanyl.

His remarks after the face-to-face talks with China’s leader Xi Jinping in the South Korean city of Busan, their first since 2019, marked the finale of Trump’s whirlwind Asia trip on which he also touted trade breakthroughs with South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asian nations.

The meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, lasted nearly two hours. Trump shook hands and escorted Xi to his car before the US president was given a red carpet send off at the airport.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said the meeting with Xi yielded an extendable one-year deal on the supply of crucial rare earths.

“All the rare earths has been settled, and that’s for the world,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that the deal was for a year and would be re-negotiated annually.

He also described his meeting with Xi as a “great success” and said he would head to China in April for new talks.

“I’ll be going to China in April and he’ll be coming here sometime after that, whether it’s in Florida, Palm Beach or Washington, DC,” Trump said.

“A lot of things we brought to finalisation” at Thursday’s talks in Busan, South Korea, added Trump, praising Xi as a “tremendous leader of a very powerful country”.

Chinese stocks climbed to a decade high and the yuan currency to a near one-year peak against the dollar as investors hoped for an easing of trade tensions that have upended supply chains and rocked global business confidence.

World stock markets from Wall Street to Tokyo have hit record highs in recent days.

Trump repeatedly talked up the prospect of reaching agreement with Xi since US negotiators on Sunday said they had agreed a framework with China that will avoid 100 per cent US tariffs on Chinese goods and achieve a deferral of China’s export curbs on rare earths, a sector it dominates.

But with both countries increasingly willing to play hardball over areas of economic and geopolitical competition, many questions remain about how long any trade detente may last.