Trump, Xi to Meet Next Thursday at APEC Summit

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00:00For the moment, let's talk about that meeting between Trump and Xi, because the White House

00:05has confirmed that the U.S. president will meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping,

00:11next Thursday on the sidelines of the APEC summit, as the leaders look to de-escalate

00:15a simmering trade war. Let's bring in our China correspondent, Min Min Lo, in Shanghai for us.

00:21So, Min Min, there's been so much attention. Will they or won't they? Now we have the White House

00:25confirming it's a date. But what do we know beyond that?

00:31Yeah, I guess certainly quite a bit of relief coming through that this is finally going to

00:36happen after so much of a guessing game over the past few days. But there's a lot at stake,

00:42right? The list of things on the agenda is very long, from geopolitical flare-ups like the Ukraine

00:47war and Taiwan, to things like tariffs, rare-ups, the threat of more software export controls from

00:53the U.S. Soybean purchase commitments, fentanyl, for example. So, President Trump has said it's

01:00going to be a pretty long meeting, but he is setting up, he's setting a pretty positive tone

01:07so far, saying that everybody is likely going to come out very happy after this meeting. But I've

01:12been speaking to investors here. Honestly, many people have been telling me they're expecting the

01:16meeting to happen as a baseline scenario. They are expecting possibly an extension of the trade

01:21truce because that expires on November 10, after which tariffs could ratchet up once again unless

01:28a truce or an extension is reached. But not many people are really expecting a big sweeping deal.

01:35And perhaps this could be just a meeting for them to continue the dialogue. President Trump did say

01:40that dialogue directly with presidency is the best way to resolve their litany of issues. It could be

01:45an agreement to continue to speak further down the road, but we'll see. Certainly, there is a lot to

01:50discuss whether or not we get that breakthrough. I think that's hard to say at this point.

01:55Yeah, and rare earth controls or export controls have impacts on a range of different areas or

02:00countries, jurisdictions. What are we hearing about the EU response or what they're said to be mulling as

02:04well? Yeah, so the EU summit is taking place in Brussels and we are hearing from sources that

02:12Emmanuel Macron has been telling his EU counterparts that the EU should be using their strongest trade tool

02:17yet to deal with China's rare earth export controls. And that tool is the anti-coercion tool. It was a legal tool

02:25that was created back during Trump's first term in power to counter any coercion from other countries. It gives them

02:31the legal tool through a majority vote of the EU countries to implement measures such as trade measures,

02:39financial measures, limiting access to EU's funding or public procurement, for example. But of course,

02:46if the EU does take these measures, it really represents a big escalation of trade tensions with

02:53China. And it could be a critical juncture where China would be then facing a multi-pronged trade war

02:58with both the US and the EU. And as you can see on this chart, China clearly dominates the rare earth supply

03:04chain. It has tremendous implication, as you said, Bell, on everything from EV batteries to consumer

03:09electronics to even chips production, because they are needed in these ultraviolet lithography

03:15machines as well. So the EU trade chief has said that they cannot accept the current situation,

03:21but they do not want to escalate. And so they're hoping to find a diplomatic solution. But if not,

03:26we know the EU is preparing a series of trade measures by the end of the month to increase their negotiating

03:31leverage.