President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will meet next Thursday in South Korea, the White House said, as the two leaders look to deescalate a simmering trade war between the two countries.

The summit will come after lower level talks between the countries this week as trade tensions between the two countries continues to rise. The US is considering curbs on software-related exports to China, Reuters reported Wednesday, adding another layer of uncertainty to trade negotiations between the countries.

The move could make good on Trump's vague threat to impose export curbs on "any and all critical software," in addition to additional 100% tariffs, from Nov. 1, after China moved restrict exports of rare earth minerals.

The US and China have seen their fragile trade relationship wobble further in recent weeks, with Trump confirming last week that the countries are in a trade war.

Trump has floated a list of demands for China talks, citing rare earths, fentanyl, and soybeans as his top issues to address with Beijing.

The administration is also seeking potential cudgels. In a move that analysts said was aimed squarely at China, Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday signed a deal that the White House said would help supply the US with the critical minerals.

Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet

The US and India are nearing a trade deal which could see tariffs on New Delhi cut to 15%-16% from their current 50% level, according to a report.

The White House is easing tariffs on the US auto industry, delivering a major win for carmakers who have lobbied to reduce the fallout from higher import duties.

Trump is stepping up attacks on US trading partners over drug pricing and is preparing a probe, which could lead to new tariffs.

Americans are set to pay more than half of President Trump's tariffs as companies raise prices, according to Goldman Sachs.

Early next month, the US Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge to Trump's most sweeping tariffs — the "reciprocal" country-by-country duties that you can see in the graphic above. A ruling against the tariffs — which would be in line with lower-court decisions — could have significant ramifications for Trump's tariff strategy.

New duties on kitchen cabinets and vanities took effect Oct. 1.

Tariffs on timber and certain wood products (like furniture) took effect Oct. 14.

President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will meet next Thursday in Malaysia, the White House said.

The White House confirmation caps days of uncertainty over whether the meeting would actually happen, as Trump himself waffled in recent days. The White House press secretary said the two leaders would meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Trump and Xi last met in person during Trump's first term in 2019. They spoke by phone earlier this year, after trade tensions between the countries first simmered.

Rare earths have become a vital negotiating point over the last few months. China holds the largest rare earth reserves globally and is tightening exports of its rare earth materials, a move that has forced the US to diversify its supply chain and sign deals with companies like MP Materials (MP).

The deepening crisis may leave the Trump administration weeks away from a rare earth crisis, which some sectors seem to be ignoring.

Yahoo Finance's Jake Conley looks into the latest problem facing President Trump:

\\"We are days if not weeks away from a crisis when it comes to national security,\\" said Neha Mukherjee, a rare earths research manager at the consultancy and research firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Earlier this month, China announced tightened export restrictions on rare earth minerals, including a complete prohibition on all exports for defense applications, potentially leaving the US defense industry without a key input across a range of weapons systems.

But during earnings calls this week, leadership at the country's so-called prime defense contractors — Lockheed Martin (LMT), RTX Corporation (RTX), and Northrop Grumman (NOC) — downplayed concerns over the supply challenges, even as tensions between Washington and Beijing over the inputs remain high.

Rare earths are crucial components in the weapons systems used by the US, from F-35 fighter jets to Tomahawk missiles. Only recently have real efforts gone into developing a dependable domestic supply chain for the materials.

China currently controls approximately 70% of rare earth mining capacity, 90% of separation and processing capacity, and 93% of magnet manufacturing globally, giving Beijing immense control over global supply.

Read more here.

China and the US will meet on Friday to discuss trade and attempt to defuse the ongoing tensions between the world's two largest economies.

China's Vice Premier He Lifeng confirmed that he will meet with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to discuss trade. The meeting will also set the stage for the highly anticipated and now fragile summit between President Trump and China's President Xi Jinping.

Bloomberg News reports:

The meeting will take place in the Malaysian capital to “discuss important issues” in the bilateral trade ties, the Commerce Ministry said in a Thursday statement. He, Beijing’s top trade negotiator, held a call with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week ahead of the planned in-person summit.

Bessent and He, a longtime associate of President Xi Jinping, face the task of negotiating down new escalatory measures imposed by their countries against one another. They are also setting the stage for expected talks later this month between Xi and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders summit in South Korea.

Earlier in October, Trump lashed out against Beijing’s vow to exert broad controls on rare-earth elements, raising the prospect of setting a sky-high tariff rate on Chinese goods and even canceling his first in-person meeting with Xi since he returned to the White House this year.

Read more here.

President Trump is getting ready to investigate US trading partners over drug prices, a probe that could unleash fresh tariffs on the industry.

The FT reports:

The imminent investigation, which would come under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, would consider whether any US trading partners are underpaying for drugs, said three people familiar with the matter.

Trump has repeatedly complained other countries pay less than the US for medicines and signalled he would take trade actions against nations that refused to “equalise”.

“In London, you’d buy a certain drug for $130 . . . and in New York, you pay $1,300 for the same thing,” Trump said last week, referring to weight-loss pills.

US drug prices are on average almost three times higher than those in many other developed countries, according to research by The Rand Corporation.

Ozempic, the popular weight-loss drug from Denmark’s Novo Nordisk (NVO), costs $936 for a one-month supply in the US, but only $147 for the same amount in neighbouring Canada and as little as $83 in France, according to data from KFF, a non-profit health group.

Read more here.

The AP reports:

Japan’s exports grew 4.2% in September, according to government data Wednesday, on robust shipments to Asia that offset a decline in exports to the U.S., which were impacted by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Japan’s exports to Asia jumped 9.2% last month compared to the same period a year earlier, according to Japanese Ministry of Finance data.

Exports to the U.S. dropped 13.3%, marking the sixth straight month of on-year declines, while those to China surged 5.8% compared to last year.

Auto shipments to the U.S. dropped 24.2% in September. Automakers like Toyota Motor Corp. are pillars of Japan's economy.

Japan’s imports edged up 3.3% in September overall, growing 6% in Asia, including a 9.8% rise in imports from China.

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

Donald Trump is interested in meeting Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and officials are discussing a possible meeting while the pair are in Malaysia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, according to a White House official.

Brazil is hoping the resumption of dialogue between the two countries will convince the US to lower the punitive levies facing key Brazilian goods, including coffee and meat. The meeting could happen as soon as Oct. 26, three Brazilian officials familiar with the planning said.

In a phone call with Trump earlier this month, Lula asked the US to bring the 50% tariff rate imposed on his country down to 10% and to remove sanctions and visa restrictions on Brazilian judges, government officials and their relatives.

After that call — which both sides described as friendly — Trump said he would look to schedule meetings with Lula in both Brazil and the US. But the summit offers an earlier opportunity for the leaders to meet and resolve a spat that began in July, after Trump sought to stop the trial of his ally Jair Bolsonaro, which has led to months of frosty relations between the two countries.

Read more here.

Tensions continue to rise in an ongoing feud between the Trump administration and US farmers who are facing the impact of tariffs.

Bloomberg reports:

President Donald Trump attacked US cattle ranchers over their criticism of his plan to slash record beef prices by importing more meat from Argentina, deepening a quarrel over his trade policy with a group of reliable supporters.

Trump on Wednesday said that cattlemen should be grateful for his tariffs, saying they have helped boost their profits, while also imploring them to lower the cost of their products.

“If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that,” the president posted on social media. “They also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”

Read more here.

The showdown between the Trump administration and China is escalating. The president is reportedly considering a new set of restrictions on US technology products.

Reuters reports:

The Trump administration is considering a plan to curb a dizzying array of software-powered exports to China, from laptops to jet engines, to retaliate against Beijing's latest round of rare earth export restrictions, according to a U.S. official and three people briefed by U.S. authorities.

While the plan is not the only option on the table, it would make good on President Donald Trump's threat earlier this month to bar \\"critical software\\" exports to China by restricting global shipments of items that contain U.S. software or were produced using U.S. software.

Read more here.

Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO) CEO Marc Casper said on Wednesday he expects the company to benefit from some of the impacts related to President Trump's tariffs — particularly the reshoring efforts announced by pharmaceutical companies.

Trump has held off on imposing his threatened triple-digit drug tariffs while negotiating agreements with pharmaceutical companies. This year, drug companies including Eli Lilly (LLY), Merck (MRK), AstraZeneca (AZN), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) all announced investments to boost US manufacturing.

\\"That will benefit our channel business, it will benefit our Bioproduction business,\\" Casper said. \\"Our Analytical Instruments businesses would all benefit from those new constructs.\\"

Casper added that it likely won't be until 2027 or 2028 that ground will be broken on new facilities, though he noted that \\"it could be a little bit faster than that.\\"

China is proving more resilient than many experts thought. According to new export data, about a billion dollars of exports cross the Pacific every day from China to the US despite President Trump's tariffs.

Bloomberg News reports:

Despite double-digit drops in the value of overall trade during the past half a year, some products have recently seen an increase from 2024, defying trade strains between Beijing and Washington.

The upshot is that US tariffs appear somewhat limited in their ability to control what American firms import, as China’s sway over sectors such as rare earths and electronics makes its products hard to dislodge, at least in the short term. That may change over time, especially if Trump further hikes tariffs, as the Republican leader has repeatedly threatened to do.

“China’s strong position in global supply chains gives it some bargaining power with US importers in the near term,” wrote Bloomberg economists Chang Shu and David Qu, who cautioned other countries can’t quickly displace China as a supplier to the US. “Realigning production will take time,” they added.

All that’s giving President Xi Jinping more bargaining power as his trade negotiators head into talks aimed at extending a 90-day tariff truce that’s set to expire in November. In the third quarter, more than $100 billion worth of Chinese goods arrived in the US, helping Beijing keep economic growth on track for its annual target and pushing the bilateral trade surplus up to $67 billion.

Read more here.

The US and India are nearing a deal to cut tariffs on New Delhi to 15-16% from 50%, according to a report in the Mint. President Trump hiked tariffs on India back in August, claiming that India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi was helping to aid the Russia-Ukraine war by purchasing oil from Moscow.

Trump said on Tuesday that he and Modi had spoken on the phone and agreed to reduce India's purchase of Russian oil.

Bloomberg News reports:

New Delhi may agree to gradually reduce its imports of Russian oil and allow the US to export more non-genetically modified American corn and soymeal, according to the report. An agreement may be announced when President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi possibly meet at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Malaysia, the newspaper said.

India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and other officials didn’t respond to the newspaper’s request for information, while the US embassy in India referred queries to the Office of the US Trade Representative.

Trump imposed 50% duties on India’s US-bound exports last month over New Delhi’s imports of Russian oil, as well as what the US has called its high tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers to American goods. The rate was the highest in Asia and has led to a sharp downturn in US-India ties, which had been warming for years.

Still, the two sides have continued discussions toward a deal. During a Diwali celebration at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said Modi assured him during a call that India would wind down its Russian oil purchases, raising the prospect of a reprieve. In a post on X, Modi acknowledged the call but did not share the contents of the discussion.

Read more here.

Bloomberg News reports:

Switzerland’s exports to the US rebounded in September, suggesting demand for its goods is so far withstanding the impact of President Donald Trump’s outsized tariffs.

Foreign sales to America excluding gold, adjusted for seasonal swings, were 43% higher in September than in August, the country’s customs office said on Tuesday. The total of Swiss shipments rose by 3.4%.

Meanwhile imports from the world’s biggest economy rose 5.5%. That means that the US trade deficit with the nation widened to 3.3 billion francs ($4.2 billion), from 2.06 billion francs the previous month. That’s the most since April and above the average of the past five years, according to Bloomberg calculations based on historic data.

Read more here.

Rising trade tensions have caused options traders to pile into defensive stocks as a hedge against big stock market swings before President Trump and China's President Xi Jinping are set to meet.

Bloomberg News reports:

Implied volatility in the S&P 500 futures (ES=F) expiring on Oct. 31 — which capture the risk around the meeting — is sitting near 20, higher than the contracts before or after the date. The Cboe VIX Index curve shows a similar ‘kink’ at the end of the month.

The US president on Friday confirmed he would meet with Xi in two weeks in South Korea — a gathering he had called into question earlier this month — and softened the tone on China tariffs, easing fears of more escalation. Still, traders aren’t taking any chances given the potential for circumstances to change. They had in mind the steep losses stocks suffered on Oct. 10, when trade jitters suddenly flared after being in the background in recent months.

“Our base case remains that de-escalation is probable so long as Trump and Xi meet at the end of the month,” said Dennis Debusschere, chief market strategist at 22V Research. “If it gets canceled the probability of escalation rises sharply.”

The view is echoed over at JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s trading desk, where head of global market intelligence Andrew Tyler said markets “will remain in an elevated” volatility environment through Oct. 31 - Nov. 1, when Trump and Xi are expected to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

“No deal by then will trigger a material pullback,” Tyler wrote in a note to clients last week.

A rising demand for protection is evident in the KraneShares CSI China Internet ETF, the $9.4 billion fund tracking Chinese technology companies. The one-month, 25 delta put-call skew on the ETF is sitting at the highest level since early April, signaling elevated anxiety between now and mid-November. To the bank’s strategists, volatility in Chinese stocks is rising amid a combination of “tariff tantrum” and a Communist part policy meeting that’s set to take place this week.

Read more here.

President Trump on Tuesday wavered over whether a highly anticipated meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping would actually happen later this month.

“Maybe it won’t happen,” Trump said at a luncheon he hosted for Republican senators, per Bloomberg. “Things can happen where, for instance, maybe somebody will say, ‘I don’t want to meet, it’s too nasty.’ But it’s really not nasty. It’s just business.”

The comments were the latest in a series of Trump's waffling over the anticipated negotiations, which still do not have a confirmed date. Even as Trump raised questions over the status of the meeting, he said he expected trade talks with China to be successful.

“I have a great relationship with President Xi. I expect to be able to make a good deal with him,” Trump said. “I want him to make a good deal for China — but it’s got to be fair.”

Yahoo Finance's Francisco Velasquez reports:

General Motors (GM) is soothing its tariff pain by raising prices on trucks and SUVs.

\\"Tariffs are getting a little bit better,\\" CFO Paul Jacobson told Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid. \\"I think the important message for the Street is that it's stabilized.\\"

... GM now expects tariffs to hit profits by $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion this year, an improvement from earlier estimates of up to $5 billion. The company said new tariff revisions should help offset some of the pain, with savings expected to show up in the fourth quarter as part of broader cost-cutting efforts.

\\"Tariffs are getting a little bit better, but I think the important message for the Street is that it's stabilized,\\" General Motors CFO Paul Jacobson tells @BrianSozzi.

Full interview: pic.twitter.com/3gmbnEqaM9

— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) October 21, 2025

To blunt the impact, GM has leaned on strategic price increases. Jacobson said the automaker has found \\"opportunities to add content and create value for the consumer\\" each time it rolls out a new model.

\\"We've got a lot of strong demand that allows us to lean into that and work with our mix, on our trucks and our full-size SUVs to help bring up some of that revenue and that margin performance to help offset [tariffs],\\" he said.

Read more here.

China responded on Tuesday to President Trump's rare earth deal with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese by saying resource-rich rare earth countries should take a \\"proactive role\\" in helping to stabilize rare earth supply chains.

\\"The formation of global production and supply chains is the result of market and corporate choices,\\" a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, according to a report from NBC.

\\"Resource-rich nations with critical minerals should play a proactive role in safeguarding the security and stability of the industrial and supply chains, and ensure normal economic and trade cooperation,\\" the statement added.

Rare earths have become a critical talking point within the trade war between the US and China. China, which holds the largest reserve of rare earth resources, recently restricted exports of the key material used in technology and other products. This prompted Trump to say he would add an additional 100% tariff on goods from China. The moves from both Beijing and Washington have caused some to worry about the already fragile trade truce between the two nations.

President Trump said that the US commands \\"great respect\\" from China and that he also expects a \\"fantastic deal\\" to be established with China's leader Xi Jinping. The US president made the comments on Monday, following weeks of back and forth between Washington and Beijing.

AP reports:

“I think we’re going to end up having a fantastic deal with China,\\" Trump said. \\"It’s going to be a great trade deal. It’s going to be fantastic for both countries, and it’s going to be fantastic for the entire world.”

When asked about China's leverage, Trump said Beijing “threatened us with rare earths, and I threatened them with tariffs.\\" But he insisted his good relationship with Xi means they would work out ”a very fair deal.\\"

Trump's remarks come after Beijing infuriated him by expanding export controls on rare earth products that are used in smartphones, fighter jets, electric vehicles and more. Trump spoke as he hosted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the White House, celebrating an agreement with the U.S. ally as a potential counterpoint to China's near-monopoly in processing those critical minerals.

All eyes are on a potential meeting between Trump and Xi because any failure to reach some agreement raises the risk of destabilizing not only relations between the two superpowers but also the global economy.

Read more here.

The US-Australian rare earth deal announced on Monday not only aims to boost US access to rare earth materials — it also helps set the stage for negotiations with China. The deal between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is aimed at China's President Xi Jinping, whose government recently restricted exports of its rare earth materials.

As the US and China head back to the negotiating table next week, Yahoo Finance's Washington correspondent Ben Werschkul delves into Trump's latest plan to befriend China's regional rivals:

\\"We'll be doing a little bit of a tour,\\" Trump said Monday at the White House. \\"I'll be in Malaysia. I'll be in Japan.\\"

It's a coordinated string of diplomatic outreach that — far from coincidentally — comes as the anticipation grows for a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping set for next week in South Korea.

Trump in recent days listed the array of tricky issues on the table between the US and China. Those include a wish for increased soybean purchases from the US, a crackdown on fentanyl, questions around Taiwan, the race for AI dominance, and, of course, that thorny issue of China's recent moves to close off its rare earth exports globally.

\\"I don't want them to play the rare earth game with us,\\" Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington on Sunday evening.

Trump noted Monday that China may offer threats over the rare earths issue. But, he added, his counterthreat would be triple-digit tariffs. \\"I could threaten them with many other things,\\" he added.

Read more here.

Shares in Australian rare earths companies spiked after President Trump and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced an agreement that will give the US increased access to Australia's supply of critical minerals.

Rare-earths producer Lynas Rare Earths Limited (LYSCF) jumped by more than 14% in the hours after the trade deal announcement, while Australian Strategic Materials (ASMMF) — a vertically integrated extractor, refiner, and manufacturer of metals and alloys including rare earth products — rallied by more than 24%.

Just five months ago, Lynas became the first producer of so-called \\"heavy\\" rare earths outside China, making it a crucial player in the global rare earth supply chain.

Shares in Nova Minerals (NVA), an Australian mining company that recently saw interest from the Trump Administration due to a gold prospect in one of the company's Alaskan mining projects, were trading down by more than 25% after a surge of more than 100% last week when news broke that the company was briefing the White House.

The deal between the US president and Australian prime minister represents of a pipeline of $8.5 billion in critical minerals, the Australian PM said at the White House.

“In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical mineral and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them,\\" Trump said at the White House on Monday.

Australia sits on the world's fourth largest deposits of rare earth minerals, with more than five million tons. Over the course of the past month, more than a dozen Australian mining companies met with US administration officials in Washington about resource pipelines and potential investments, according to Bloomberg.

The US and Australia on Monday signed a deal on rare earth minerals, in what could end up being a cudgel for President Trump in his administration's upcoming trade talks with China.

The agreement would increase US access to critical minerals and rare earths, the White House said, at a time when China has taken steps to curb its own supply of those materials.

\\"In about a year from now, we’ll have so much critical minerals and rare earths that you won’t know what to do with them,\\" Trump said at the White House during a meeting with the Australian prime minister.

The White House fact sheet has some more details on the agreement.

Our markets blog will cover some of the movers in this space, as well.