Trump Threatens Xi Meeting Cancellation Over China’s Rare Earth Export Crackdown
President Donald Trump warned Friday that his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping may be scrapped following what he described as “very hostile” trade actions from Beijing, including sweeping export restrictions on rare-earth minerals.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump revealed that multiple countries had reached out to him in outrage after receiving letters from Chinese officials threatening global supply chains. “Some very strange things are happening in China!” Trump wrote. “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.”
The Chinese export move, announced Thursday, targets critical materials essential to advanced manufacturing, military systems, and consumer electronics. Trump characterized the action as a clear attempt by China to leverage its global dominance in rare earth production as economic warfare. “Things that were routine are no longer routine at all,” he said.
Trump, who is scheduled to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea later this month, indicated the Xi summit may be off. “I was to meet President Xi in two weeks… but now there seems to be no reason to do so,” he stated. “This was a real surprise, not only to me, but to all the Leaders of the Free World.”
The president emphasized that the U.S.-China relationship had been relatively calm in recent months, citing China’s cooperation in the TikTok ownership transfer deal. But Trump also admitted he long suspected Beijing was “lying in wait,” adding, “now, as usual, I have been proven right!”
Trump pledged to fight back against any attempt by China to corner the global market. “For every element they try to monopolize, we will have two,” he wrote. He floated the possibility of massive new tariffs and other economic penalties: “One of the policies we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States.”
With the geopolitical climate shifting and Trump seeking to reassert economic dominance in the Pacific, Friday’s warning marks a sharp escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions. Whether Xi will back down — or whether the two will meet at all — remains an open question.