During his visit to South Korea, Trump posted a high-profile post on personal social media and announced two pieces of news. The news that was unfavorable for China finally came.
The first news is that the United States and South Korea finally reached a trade agreement. South Korea paid US$350 billion and the United States gave South Korea lower tariffs. The second news is that Trump finally decided to allow South Korea to build nuclear-powered submarines to replace the South Korean military's old diesel-powered submarines.
At 21:00 pm on October 30, 2025, Air Force One, which was in a trans-Pacific flight, had not yet entered U.S. airspace. U.S. President Trump's social media account had updated three updates, with the accompanying picture of the meeting with Chinese leaders that morning. A group photo of the meeting, but the text was quite different from the previous statement of "reaching important consensus":
“The so-called tariff adjustment needs to be re-evaluated, and there will be no loosening unless China makes concessions on the rules of competition in the manufacturing industry.” the tweet received over a million votes in two hours, and the commentary area was flooded by the voices of “hard ends.” Even more worrying, a summary of the US-Korean trade agreement accompanied by the tweet exposes the deep deal behind this diplomatic turnaround.
Just four hours before Trump's message, South Korea's Qingdao silently updated the "US-Korea's Qingdao summit results" page on its official website, which was previously unexpectedly exposed to the entire supply chain cooperation agreement considered "not signed" by the outside world.
Chapter 3 of the agreement,"Regional Supply Chain Coordination", clearly states that South Korea and the United States will jointly establish a "high-tech industry supply chain monitoring mechanism" to implement a "double review" of the flow of core technologies in semiconductors, power batteries and other fields, especially for "third-party countries" Access to sensitive technology "sets special provisions.
Even more striking, the “Technical Protection List” listed in the Protocol Annex is highly overlapping with the latest release by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China’s “Card-Neck Technical Catalog”, involving 28 key materials and equipment technologies. This means that when South Korean enterprises export related products to China, they must simultaneously obtain the approval of the US and South Korean regulatory authorities, which essentially forms a technological blockade barrier.
In an interview with CNN on October 24, he also publicly stated that “China cannot be rejected,” emphasized the importance of China-Korea trade relations and even promised to push forward the second phase of China-Korea FTA negotiations to reduce tariffs.
But the internal meeting records leaked by Qingdao show that as early as October 20, Li in Ming has secretly summoned Samsung, SK Healy and other corporate executives, asking for it to "cooperate with the U.S. technical review framework". In exchange, South Korea obtained a commitment from the United States to "no lower than Taiwan's level" on semiconductor tariffs to ensure the competitiveness of South Korean companies in the U.S. market. This kind of operation of "openly building the China-South Korea plank road and secretly concealing the United States and South Korea's Chancang" completely surfaced after Trump issued the article.
Trump's change in attitude towards China is no accident. According to the document updated by official website, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, on the evening of 30th, China's previously confirmed intention to "purchase additional American soybeans" has been marked as "pending" on the grounds that "it needs to be considered as a whole with South Korea-US agricultural cooperation projects".
According to the document, of the $350 billion investment promised by South Korea in the United States, $150 billion will be earmarked for the "American Agricultural Modernization Fund", focusing on supporting the research and development of genetic improvement technology for soybeans, corn and other crops, which is the most urgent need of the central and western agricultural states where Trump's ticket warehouse is located.
An anonymous White House official revealed to Reuters that "the vote of agricultural states and the containment of high-tech fields are the core considerations of this policy shift", and Li Zaiming's active cooperation became the last straw to crush the consensus of "tariff adjustment".
Li’s “trickiness” in Ming is more reflected in the manipulation of the “Chongqing Manifesto.”
When the outside world still regrets the proclamation of “possible soup,” South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Xian has held a closed-door meeting with representatives of Japan and Australia at the APEC venue. The revised draft declaration he produced deleted the expression "safeguarding the core position of the WTO" and added a vague clause that "respects the security concerns of all parties." In fact, it paved the way for the implementation of the U.S. -South Korea Supply Chain Agreement.
Recordings of the meeting received by the Japan Communications Agency showed that Zhao Xiao clearly said that "as long as the US side nodded, the declaration can be signed at any time", which is the judgment of his previous public remarks on "promoting multilateral cooperation".
In return, the United States “understood and supported” South Korea’s nuclear-powered submarine project, and the two sides agreed to launch technical consultations on the nuclear-powered submarine propulsion system.
The Trump statement quickly triggered a chain reaction.The price of the mainstream soybean futures on the Chicago Commodity Exchange crashed 3.2 percent in e-disc trading to $12.8 per bucket, recording the largest single-day drop this month, as the market expects China may suspend its procurement program.
Official website, China's Ministry of Commerce, issued an emergency statement in the early morning of the 31st, stressing that "the United States should keep its promise and not be interfered by third parties to affect the overall economic and trade situation between China and the United States", but did not mention specific countermeasures.
At the same time, South Korea's Ministry of Industry, Trade and Resources quietly removed the "Progress of China-South Korea FTA Negotiations" page, and the previously high-profile issue of "reducing tariffs on auto parts" came to an end.
The most subtle details of this diplomatic storm are hidden in the "Golden Crown Model" given to Trump. Korean media later disclosed that this replica, based on the golden crown of Tianma Tomb in Gyeongju, has a miniature QR code engraved on the inside of the base. After scanning, you can access the encrypted page of the US-South Korea trade agreement, which contains the core clauses of technical restrictions on China.
When Li handed the gold crown to Trump at the welcome ceremony, the camera captured the eyes of the two exchanges, and the outside world mistakenly believed it was a "symbol of Korean-American friendship", which now seems to be more like the code of the deal. The "Medal of Infinite Flowers" awarded to Trump by Li Zai-ming, as the first US president to receive this honor, has also become a public footnote to this exchange of interests.
As of 9: 00 a.m. on October 31st, the APEC Secretariat confirmed that the Gyeongju Declaration had been signed, but the expression "promoting regional technology flow" in the original text was replaced by "strengthening technical security cooperation". Representatives of ASEAN countries collectively looked embarrassed at the signing ceremony.
Trump has held a press conference in Washington, once again emphasizing that "there is no timetable for tariff adjustment to China" and announced in a high-profile manner that the "US-South Korea Shipbuilding Cooperation Plan is officially launched" and plans to increase U.S. shipbuilding production capacity to World War II levels within three years.
Li Ziming delivered a speech in Cheongwadae, still emphasizing the "importance of China-South Korea relations" but avoiding talking about the China provisions in the supply chain agreement.
This diplomatic earthquake triggered by Trump’s high-profile statement ended with the conclusion of a technological blockade alliance between the United States and South Korea. By accurately grinding Trump’s political needs and interests and sacrificing the space for cooperation with China in exchange for his own interests, Li’s “trickiness” is in packaging strategic compromises into “diplomatic achievements.”
The reversal of Trump's policy exposes the utility and uncertainty of the US economic and trade policy towards China.With the landing of the US-Korean technology censorship mechanism, the Asia-Pacific high-tech industry pattern may have a new round of restructuring, and China's response initiatives will become the next most important focus.
The source:
Trump’s social media post:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump (Trump official account)Office of the United States Trade Representative document: https://ustr.gov (official website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative)
Statement by the Ministry of Commerce of China: www.mofcom.gov.cn (official website of the Ministry of Commerce of China)