When the wheels of Air Force One lifted up from Beijing on Friday, US President Trump was wrapping a three-day visit with many questions still outstanding about what exactly he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping had agreed to.
Over the weekend, statements from both sides have started to demystify the outcomes of a meeting that was largely about resetting the tone between the world’s top economies after a fractious year that drove both to the edge of decoupling.
Now, the US and China are poised to set up two new institutions – a “board of trade” and a “board of investment” – to manage those economic ties, statements from the White House and China’s Ministry of Commerce confirmed Sunday.
The White House also said that China would purchase at least $17 billion per year of US agricultural products and make an initial purchase of 200 American-made Boeing aircraft.
Beijing’s readout did not directly confirm those deals, saying instead that both sides would “promote expanded two-way trade” in agricultural goods and had made arrangements on China procuring American planes.
Both announcements are short on specifics and fall short of a major breakthrough in rebalancing trade.
But they bolster signals set out by both Trump and Xi during their summit that they want to avoid volatility and increase cooperation – setting their countries’ rivalry on more predictable ground.
The two sides last year were locked in a tit-for-tat trade battle that upended supply chains, including of the strategically critical rare earths that Beijing holds a near monopoly on refining.
Xi and Trump agreed to a year-long truce during a meeting last October, and their latest summit has ushered in a new goal for their ties: achieving what both sides have dubbed a “constructive relationship of strategic stability.”
Outcomes announced so far also spotlight where daylight and frictions continue to exist. There’s little sign, too, of how they’ll work together on one of the thorniest issues: tech.
Beijing, for its part, also makes clear that there’s more to be hammered out by negotiators in the weeks and months to come, calling the current results “preliminary.”
A $17 billion win?
The main topline number from the White House following the talks is $17 billion – the minimum amount Washington says China has agreed to purchase of American farm goods annually through 2028.
The $17 billion will come on top of the soybean purchase commitments that Beijing made in October 2025, during the summit between the two leaders in South Korea, which led to their trade truce.
That level of purchases would be a big jump from last year, when US agricultural exports to China totalled only $8.4 billion, according to US government data. But it’s not far off from levels in 2024, the last year of the Biden administration and before Trump’s tariff war.
The $17 billion agreement to purchase US agricultural goods plus its existing commitment to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans will amount to roughly $27 billion in value per year, according to a CNN calculation based on the prices of soybeans exported to China last year. That’s slightly higher than the $24.4 billion worth of US agricultural exports to China in 2024, data from the US Department of Agriculture showed.
The White House factsheet did not provide further details on what it called China’s agreement to an “initial purchase” of 200 Boeing aircraft, which the American aerospace giant has yet to publicly confirm.
China’s Commerce Ministry merely confirmed arrangements on procuring aircraft and ensuing China’s supply of aircraft engines – technology where China still lags the US.
Both sides also pointed to reducing barriers for other agriculture trade, while Beijing said they would promote expanded trade in farm goods, including through “mutual tariff reductions.”
Tariffs and the ‘board of trade’
Mention of “tariff reductions” were noticeably missing in the White House summary of the recent talks. Trump told reporters that he and Xi did not discuss the tariff issue.
US tariffs last year sparked the countries’ trade war, but were brought down through negotiations and the subsequent truce.
But the issue remains live: the US is currently investigating whether it will add additional tariffs on certain goods from China and other nations, after the Supreme Court struck down some of the Trump administration’s existing levies.
How and whether the newly announced “board of trade” would play into these issues remains unclear, with details still hazy.
China’s Ministry of Commerce framed the “board of trade” as a forum to discuss concerns, as well as issues like tariff reductions. It said the two nations “agreed in principle” to mutually reduce tariffs on certain products.
In an interview with CBS’ Face the Nation that aired Sunday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer described the board as a “formalized way” for the two governments to discuss the raft of tariffs, import controls, export controls and non-tariffs barriers impacting trade between the two sides.
“We’re thinking about how to manage economic relations between the US and China. These are two economies that are quite different, and we’re focused on trade in non-sensitive goods,” Greer said of the board, noting “non-sensitive goods” include could agricultural and energy products, Boeing planes, and medical devices.
The board of investment, he added, was a way to “put out issues when they arise between the two countries.”
In Chinese state media over the weekend, experts and pundits made similar observations, suggesting the boards would reduce miscalculations and improve the stability of trade and investment.
Another lingering question is how the two will deal with another fraught issue: their tech rivalry. China has long sought to get the US to roll back restrictions on exports of high-tech goods to China, including chipmaking equipment.
The White House in its fact sheet nodded to another subject that is widely seen as having brought the US to the negotiating table last year: critical minerals.
China would “address US concerns” on supply chain shortages of rare earths and other critical minerals and on restrictions of the sale of related processing equipment and technologies, it said.
While Beijing has agreed to postpone the implementation of some of its sweeping controls on rare earths in October, industries have continued to struggle with supply shortages.
Beijing’s statements did not explicitly mention these issues.
They did, however, say the two sides would continue to “implement the outcomes” of previous talks.
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