By The Editors

Written by The Editors

Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Trump-Xi summit produced a Chinese pledge to buy American coal and a tariff truce, but Beijing’s official account quietly omitted both the coal and the rare earths that Washington most needs resolved. 

China refines the critical minerals that build American fighter jets, submarines, and missiles, and it has already shown it will choke that supply to gain leverage. A summit that ends with rare earths unresolved leaves the Pentagon’s hardest dependency exactly where Beijing wants it.

What each side claims

The coal pledge is American. The White House says China will import “at least 10 million metric tons” of US coal in 2027 and again in 2028.

China left it out. Beijing’s official eight-point readout makes no mention of any coal purchase, one of several gaps between the two versions.

The tariff cut is mutual. Both sides confirmed a reciprocal reduction on about $30 billion of goods in each direction, covering items like appliances, toys, and, on China’s side, farm products and medical devices.

Follow the money

• Rare earths are the prize. The White House said only that the two countries “continue to work on U.S. concerns regarding supply chain shortages related to rare earths and other critical minerals, with the goal of ensuring shipment levels return to appropriate levels.”
• China said nothing. Beijing’s readout omitted rare earths and critical minerals entirely, leaving the single most strategic issue with no commitment attached.
• The dependence is stark. China controls roughly 70% of rare earth mining, 90% of processing, and 93% of magnet manufacturing, the magnets that go into F-35s and Tomahawk missiles.

In Their Own Words

On whether Beijing can be trusted to keep the magnets flowing, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was blunt: “They can’t be trusted.”

What The Other Side Is Doing & How To Neutralize It

Beijing is actively weaponizing this dependence, and in October 2025 its commerce ministry expanded rare-earth export controls to cover any foreign-made magnet containing even trace Chinese material, a chokehold aimed straight at US defense manufacturing.

The counter is already building at home: the Pentagon took the largest stake in MP Materials with a $400 million investment, set a price floor to keep the mine profitable, and committed to buy the full output of a new magnet plant targeting 10,000 metric tons of American capacity by 2028.

Putting this in context

Summits are theater, and this one delivered the props: pandas for the Atlanta zoo, a coal handshake, a tariff trim. The substance is in what Beijing refused to write down. China will happily buy American coal and cut a tariff on children’s car seats, because none of that touches its real source of power over the United States, which is its grip on the minerals that make modern weapons.

Until America mines and refines its own, every negotiation with Beijing starts with Washington needing something it cannot make. The MP Materials deal is the right instinct. The job is to finish it before the next export ban, not the next summit.

-The Editors

National Security / Energy & Manufacturing · Upstream of the Swamp · September 27, 2026

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