BANGKOK >> Washington and Beijing have signed a trade agreement that will make it easier for American firms to obtain magnets and rare earth minerals from China that are critical to manufacturing and microchip production, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday.

The agreement comes after China retaliated against steep import tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese goods and moved to slow export of rare earth minerals and magnets much-needed by U.S. industrial interests.

Bessent said on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria” that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping “had a phone call” previously “and then our teams met in London, ironed this out, and I am confident now that we, as agreed, the magnets will flow.”

“Part of the agreement was tariffs coming down and rare earth magnets starting to flow back to the U.S.,” Bessent said. “They formed the core of a lot of our industrial base. They were not flowing as fast as previously agreed.”

His comments follow President Donald Trump announcing two weeks earlier an agreement with China that he said would ease exportation of magnets and rare earth minerals

That pact cleared the way for the trade talks to continue. The U.S. has previously suspended some sales to China of critical U.S. technologies such as components used for jet engines and semiconductors. It has also agreed to stop trying to revoke visas of Chinese nationals on U.S. college campuses.

Bessent added of critical mineral exports: “What we’re seeing here is a de-escalation.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg TV that the deal was signed earlier this week.

China’s Commerce Ministry said Friday that the two sides had “further confirmed the details of the framework,” when responding to a question about if China was to speed up exports of rare earths to the U.S. and if the U.S. was to remove some restrictions on China.

“China will, in accordance with the law, review and approve eligible export applications for controlled items. In turn, the United States will lift a series of restrictive measures it had imposed on China,” the ministry said.

Initial talks in Geneva in early May led both sides to postpone massive tariff hikes that were threatening to freeze much trade between the two countries. Later talks in London set a framework for negotiations and the deal mentioned by Trump appeared to formalize that agreement — setting the stage for Bessent’s comments Friday.

In London, export controls of the minerals eclipsed tariffs in the trade negotiations after China in April imposed permitting requirements on seven rare earth elements, per a Chinese law that applies to all exports, not just those bound for the U.S. market.

With the permitting process taking 45 days, the new requirement has caused a pause in shipments, threatening to disrupt production of cars, robots, wind turbines and other high-tech products in the U.S. and around the world. The U.S., meanwhile, took restrictive measures on exports of high tech to China.