U.S. Treasury Secretary Warns China Must Immediately Fulfill Busan Trade Agreement
nashnova research
Treasury Secretary Bessent and Trade Rep Greer called Vice Premier He Lifeng, demanding immediate, full compliance with the Busan trade-truce deal — the core dispute: China has delivered roughly two-thirds of its rare-earth commitments, with less than two months left.
What exactly did Washington say on this call?
Bessent and Greer called He Lifeng on Friday with unusually blunt language: China must deliver on Busan "immediately and fully."
The Treasury statement said "continued progress depends on tangible results" — the US will closely assess China's performance.
This means → Washington is not asking for improvement. It is setting a pass-fail test.
Per the Financial Times, Bessent and Greer made clear that Trump himself treats this as a "priority."
What is the Busan deal — and why is it blowing up now?
The Busan agreement was struck in October 2025 in Busan, South Korea — a phased trade-truce arrangement originally set to expire on January 10 this year.
During Xi Jinping's Washington visit in September, the two sides failed to bridge their differences and extended the deadline by two months to January 2027.
In plain terms = the deal already got one lifeline. Now, with under two months to the new deadline, the US says China still has not delivered.
Rare earths — where is the sticking point?
US officials believe China has fulfilled only about two-thirds of its Busan rare-earth commitments — and since Bessent raised the issue face-to-face in New York in September, Beijing has not increased supply.
China denies the charge and insists it has met its obligations — the two sides flatly disagree.
Washington also flagged China's restrictions on yttrium exports to Japan. Yttrium — a rare-earth element critical to jet engines and missiles — feeds into Japanese-made components used in US products. Japanese companies have warned their government that inventories are at dangerously low levels.
This means → the rare-earth dispute is no longer just bilateral. It now pulls in Japan's supply chain, widening the impact.
How is the agricultural side doing?
The US considers China's soybean-purchase commitment fulfilled.
But commitments on other agricultural products remain outstanding.
In plain terms = soybeans passed; the rest is still owed. Rare earths are the biggest unfulfilled item, but not the only one.
What happens in the next two months?
Trump and Xi are expected to meet at the APEC summit in Shenzhen in roughly two weeks, but trade is not expected to dominate that agenda.
More substantive negotiations are anticipated at the G20 summit in Miami in December.
Bessent and Greer are also expected to hold face-to-face talks with their Chinese counterparts sometime between APEC and G20.
This reflects Washington's sequencing: phone pressure first, summit observation second, then an in-person showdown — whether rare-earth supply meaningfully increases before the deadline is the key variable for the truce's survival.
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