The U.S. and China have reached a trade deal that eases tech and rare earth restrictions

The Chinese government said Friday that it had struck an agreement with Washington that eases tech restrictions and paves the way for rare earth exports to resume.

"China will review and approve applications for the export of controlled items," the Chinese Commerce ministry said in a statement. It added that the U.S. will "correspondingly" get rid of several restrictive measures against Beijing.

Negotiations toward a broader trade deal between the U.S. and China are still ongoing. The latest announcement could help reduce economic tensions that had reached a boiling point a month ago and prompted new Chinese restrictions on rare-earth minerals. Those threatened to cripple supply chains for automakers and other segments of the economy that depended on it as critical components.

The delicate truce struck in a mid-May Geneva agreement between Washington and Beijing appears to be holding for now. That temporarily paused triple-digit tariffs that roiled their trade relations.

On Thursday, Trump said during a White House event that the U.S. had "signed with China yesterday" without getting into details.

A White House official said that the Trump administration and China agreed to an "additional understanding" for a framework to implement the Geneva agreement. The official didn't elaborate further.

Other Trump administration officials filled in the blanks later in the morning. "Agreements have been made for tariffs to come down and rare earth magnets to start flowing back to the U.S.," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an X post. He added that it was another step towards "de-escalation."

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed that the latest understanding with China was focused on rare earth exports. He was part of a U.S. negotiating team that met with Chinese officials earlier this month in London for two-days of high-level talks to keep progressing towards a big trade deal.

"They’re going to deliver rare earths to us," Lutnick told Bloomberg News, adding that the Trump administration's "countermeasures" will be removed once Beijing holds up their end of the bargain.

Bessent projected confidence that the Trump administration was succeeding in its campaign to reorient global trade on terms they deem more favorable to the U.S. He said in a Fox Business interview on Friday that at least 10 trade deals could be "wrapped up" by Labor Day.

Meanwhile, the White House has said that a July 9 deadline to strike trade agreements could be extended.