Thanksgiving Deadline Slips as Trump/Xi Deal Moves Quietly into Implementation
Bessent’s hoped-for holiday signing hasn’t materialized, but the Busan framework is advancing through tariff exclusions, rare-earths steps, and scheduled Chinese ag purchases
Despite Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s projection that a formal Trump/Xi agreement would be signed “around Thanksgiving,” no new joint text or ceremony has emerged. Instead, the administration is steadily implementing the Busan framework already announced on Nov. 1 — extending key Section 301 tariff exclusions, advancing rare-earths licensing fixes, and tracking China’s scheduled purchases of U.S. agriculture. In effect, the political deal is moving forward even as the anticipated Thanksgiving-week signing slipped quietly past without a fresh document.
Caveats. While there is no public word yet of a new, formally signed Trump/Xi agreement hitting Bessent’s “around Thanksgiving” target, what we have is the existing Busan framework being implemented in pieces, not a fresh signing ceremony.
Here’s where things stand:
•What Bessent promised. In mid-November, Bessent told Fox News that a U.S./China rare-earths agreement would “hopefully” be done by Thanksgiving, on top of the broader Trump/Xi framework reached in South Korea on Oct. 30. At that point he was clear the detailed agreement still wasn’t finished.
•The underlying deal is already operating. The political deal was effectively announced weeks ago: a 10-point cut in U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods plus Chinese moves to suspend new rare-earth export controls and ramp up ag purchases, laid out in the Nov. 1 White House fact sheet and follow-on coverage. Bessent is now talking mainly about implementation — e.g. telling CNBC on Nov. 25 that China is “right on schedule” for the pledged soybean buys.
• Post-Thanksgiving moves, but no “we signed it” moment. On Nov. 26, USTR extended Section 301 tariff exclusions on a swath of Chinese industrial and medical goods for a full year, explicitly tying that step to the “historic trade and economic deal” Trump and Xi announced on Nov. 1. That’s concrete follow-through on the Busan framework.
However, as of this morning (Nov. 28), neither the White House nor Beijing has released a new joint text or announced a specific Thanksgiving-week signing ceremony for a separate “final” Trump/Xi agreement. Some analysis pieces even in the last week were still warning that divergent U.S./China readouts made getting a fully documented rare-earths annex by Thanksgiving “especially challenging.”
What some China watchers are saying: Bessent’s Thanksgiving line looks to have been aspirational timing. The Busan/Nov. 1 framework is in force and being implemented (tariff exclusions, rare-earths licensing language, ag purchases), but there’s no clearly documented, new Trump/Xi signing event “around Thanksgiving” you can point to yet, at least in reporting so far today.
