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US President Donald Trump said he would cut tariffs imposed on China over the flow of chemical ingredients for fentanyl, as he arrived in South Korea ahead of a high-stakes summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Speaking on Air Force One on Wednesday, Trump said he would lower the 20 per cent tariff he imposed early in his term. The levy was designed to put pressure on Beijing to curb the export of precursor chemicals used to make the synthetic opioid, which has triggered an epidemic in the US.
“I expect to be lowering that because I believe they can help us with the fentanyl situation,” Trump said. “We have to get rid of it.”
US and Chinese officials over the weekend wrapped up trade talks that produced a tentative deal for Trump and Xi to approve when they meet in the south-eastern city of Gyeongju on Thursday.
Following the talks, a US official had told the Financial Times that China was prepared to take concrete measures to stop the flow of fentanyl ingredients which, he said, would merit “a little bit of relief” from the US.
Speaking to business executives attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Gyeongju shortly after he landed in the city, Trump said he expected to reach an agreement with Xi.
“We’re going to have a deal. I think it’ll be a good deal for both and that’s really a great result . . . That’s better than fighting,” Trump said.
The US president will also meet South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday. Washington and Seoul are yet to finalise a deal that would give South Korea a lower tariff rate of 15 per cent in exchange for $350bn of investment in the US.
Trump told the executives he would finalise a deal with Seoul “very soon”, saying it would be within “moments or very shortly thereafter”.
Lee has insisted that several “sticking points” remained, including the amount, method and timeline of the Korean investment.
“It is still a situation where one can neither be optimistic nor pessimistic,” Lee Kyu-youn, a senior aide to President Lee, told reporters, according to South Korea’s state-owned news agency Yonhap.
Ahead of their working lunch, Lee presented Trump with a replica of an ancient golden crown dating back to the Silla kingdom, which ruled much of the Korean peninsula from Gyeongju during the first millennium.
He also awarded Trump South Korea’s highest order of merit, the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, for “promoting the development and security of the Republic of Korea”.
The lunch menu included a “Korean Platter of Sincerity with US Beef,” as well as a “Peacemaker’s Dessert” consisting of “golden citrus dessert with gold-adorned brownie”.
The blandishments came despite a rocky period in the allies’ relationship, which has been tested by Trump’s tariffs. In September, US immigration enforcement agents arrested and shackled hundreds of Korean workers at a battery plant in the US state of Georgia, further troubling ties between Washington and Seoul.
In his speech on Wednesday, Trump said the “entire world should be inspired” by South Korea’s economic development, and hailed Washington’s relationship with Seoul, describing the allies as “serious partners”.
“We’re wedded, and we have a very special relationship, a special bond,” Trump said.
But without a deal on South Korea’s mooted $350bn investment, Asia’s fourth-largest economy continues to be subject to 25 per cent US tariffs. That puts its auto exporters at a disadvantage to Japanese rivals, who are subject to a 15 per cent tariff under Tokyo’s agreement with Washington.
Korean officials are also nervous about the Trump administration’s determination to “modernise” the countries’ defence alliance, including by shifting its focus more squarely on China’s growing military capabilities.
Trump, who was greeted by a South Korean air force band playing “YMCA”, had previously said he would “love to meet” North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and that he was prepared to discuss sanctions relief on the regime.
However, he told reporters on Air Force One that he was too busy. “I also want to focus on China,” Trump said.
Trump arrived in South Korea from Japan where he held his first meeting with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
The leaders pledged to bring the US-Japan alliance into a new “golden age” and signed a deal on rare earths designed to reduce their countries’ dependence on China.
