Lutnick said in an interview with Bloomberg: "We signed an agreement with China, do you remember? We went to Geneva. Then we slowly moved forward. We met again in London two days ago and signed the agreement. The president just said that."
He added that an agreement with India was also in the pipeline, saying "the way these agreements are made is that their prime minister and parliament have to approve it. The president likes to finalize these agreements himself... The president will make the decision and he will decide the final details at the end."
In another report, Bloomberg quoted the U.S. Secretary of Commerce as commenting: “They (China) will provide us with rare earths,” and after China delivers the rare earths, “we will take corresponding measures.” It is uncertain whether the measures also include restrictions on the sale of advanced semiconductors to China, with Lutnick likely referring to tariffs Trump has imposed on Chinese imports.
In another report, Reuters quoted the White House as saying that the United States and China had reached an understanding on restoring the supply of rare earth mines to China. The official said the understanding was about how China could speed up exports of rare earths to the United States, but did not mention any reciprocal measures the United States had agreed to take.
Rare earth minerals have always been a core issue in Sino-US trade negotiations. China controls most of the world's supply of rare earth minerals and risks disruption to automotive, defense and consumer electronics supply chains after suspending exports to the United States. However, shares of U.S. rare earth mining companies such as MP Materials fell 2.6% in pre-market trading after the latest announcement, having risen 73% in June alone.
Like China Rare Earth, the United States has a monopoly on advanced artificial intelligence chips, thanks to NVIDIA and AMD (to a slightly lesser extent). The two companies are the world's top artificial intelligence chip designers, which allows the United States to restrict their sales to any country deemed to endanger U.S. national security. It's unclear whether AI GPUs and other chips are included in the concessions reached, with Nvidia's shares holding steady in premarket trading while AMD's shares edged up 1%. AMD's stock price rose 30% in June, driven by factors such as potential expansion of its business in China.