Exclusive | ‘No retreat’: key Trump ally urges continued US-China engagement on rare earths - South China Morning Post

Nayan Sethin WashingtonPublished: 6:00am, 3 Oct 2026Updated: 8:20am, 3 Oct 2026US Republican Senator Steve Daines, a close aide to President Donald Trump and a key interlocutor between Washington and Beijing, has called on the two capitals to stay engaged and “not retreat” over differences on issues including rare earth supply chains.Daines told the South China Morning Post that both sides still had issues that predated Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington last week and that they would continue working on them after the summit.“So that’s again why it’s really important to keep the dialogue going on between two countries because both sides admit we’ve got some serious differences. But the answer is not to retreat. The answer is to stay engaged,” he said.

The outgoing senator from Montana was responding to remarks by US ambassador to China David Perdue, who accused Beijing of “weaponising” its “single-source dominant position” on critical minerals against the rest of the world.