Trump says he and Xi will sign China trade deal
China rare earth magnet exports to U.S. slide by a fifth in November.
PALM BEACH, Fla. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have a signing ceremony to sign the first phase of the U.S.-China trade deal agreed to this month.
“We will be having a signing ceremony, yes,” Trump told reporters. “We will ultimately, yes, when we get together. And we’ll be having a quicker signing because we want to get it done. The deal is done, it’s just being translated right now.”
United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Dec. 13 that representatives from both countries would sign the Phase 1 trade deal agreement in the first week of January.
Speaking in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said both countries were in close contact.
“Both sides’ economic and trade teams are in close communication about detailed arrangements for the deal’s signing and other follow-up work,” Geng told a daily news briefing. He did not elaborate.
Beijing has not yet confirmed specific components of the deal that were released by U.S. officials. A spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry said last week the details would be made public after the official signing.
China rare earth magnet exports to U.S. slide by a fifth in November
China’s exports of rare earth magnets to the United States fell 21.2% month-on-month, customs data showed on Wednesday, as improving trade relations between the two countries reduced demand for stockpiling.
U.S.-bound shipments of the magnets, which are widely used in medical devices, consumer electronics and defense, came in at 376 tonnes last month, according to data from the General Administration of Customs. The figure was also down 3.2% year-on-year.
The U.S. military plans to stockpile rare earth magnets used in Javelin missiles and F-35 fighter jets, according to a government document seen by Reuters, although a U.S. policy bill bans the purchase of rare earth magnets from China for military use in the 2019 fiscal year.
China, the world’s top producer of rare earth magnets, raised in May the prospect of restricting the supply of rare earth products in its trade war with Washington.
It has since raised annual rare earth output quotas to record highs and agreed an initial deal to end the trade row, although its overall rare earth exports in November totaled only 2,636 tonnes, the lowest since May 2015, customs data released on Dec. 8 showed.
China’s rare earth magnet exports to all countries came in at around 2,891 tonnes last month, down 6.5% from 3,091 tonnes in October and up 10.4% from November 2018.
The biggest export destination for the magnets was Germany, to which China sent 672 tonnes in November. In October, rare earth magnet exports to Germany had spiked to around 708 tonnes, the highest since at least 2016.
