Greer said the key industrial components were a focus of negotiations in Stockholm last week that Beijing said led to an extension of their tariff truce. Without going into detail, he said the U.S. secured commitments about their supply on CBS’s Face the Nation aired Sunday.

“We’re focused on making sure that magnets from China to the United States and the adjacent supply chain can flow as freely as it did before the control,” Greer said in the interview, which was taped Friday. “And I would say we’re about halfway there.”

That assessment came some four months after China imposed export controls on rare earth magnets—used in products from home appliances to missiles—in retaliation for U.S. tariff threats. Beijing has agreed to speed up their shipments after Washington suspended sky-high levies on Chinese exports. 

U.S. President Donald Trump is set to make the final call on maintaining the tariff truce, which expires Aug. 12, Greer said.

“We’re working on some technical issues, and we’re talking to the president about it,” he said.

Flows of rare earth magnets from China to the U.S. rose to 353 tons in June, up from just 46 tons in May, according to the latest customs data. Total shipments were still substantially lower than before Beijing launched export controls in early April. 

Greer earlier said Trump’s trade team hopes to be done discussing magnets with China, after he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrapped up a third round of trade talks with Beijing in the Swedish capital end of July. If the U.S. can get over the magnets issue, it can move to a further discussion of the U.S.-China relationship, he added.

The discussions have helped stabilize relations between the world’s two largest economies, although many frictions remain, including over the U.S.’ curbs on exporting advanced AI chips to its main competitor.

Beijing authorities on Thursday summoned Nvidia Corp. to discuss alleged security vulnerabilities related to its H20 chips. The Trump administration only recently pledged to drop export restrictions on the less-advanced technology to China, in a reversal that spurred talk of a potential broader deal with Beijing.

The Cyberspace Administration of China cited comments by U.S. lawmakers about the need to install tracking capabilities into advanced chips sold to other countries. The agency asked staff at the world’s most valuable company to explain potential risks and provide documents as needed, the CAC said without elaborating.

French Industry Minister Marc Ferracci said agreeing to 10% tariffs on European exports to the US would be a bad deal, signaling disapproval of a potential compromise with Washington.

• President Donald Trump said that although trade negotiations are still ongoing, he would rather send countries a letter that lays out the tariff rates they face and not extend the July 9 deadline, when the halt on his “reciprocal tariffs” will expire. Trump previously vowed to send similar letters in May and earlier this month, though talks continued.

The U.S. is still engaged in trade negotiations during a temporary pause on aggressive “reciprocal tariffs,” but President Donald Trump said he could instead send letters to countries that set the rates they will face.

In a note on Saturday titled “Has Trump Outsmarted Everyone on Tariffs?”, Apollo Global Management Chief Economist Torsten Sløk laid out a scenario that keeps tariffs well below Trump’s most aggressive rates long enough to ease uncertainty and avoid the economic harm that comes with it.

“Maybe the strategy is to maintain 30% tariffs on China and 10% tariffs on all other countries and then give all countries 12 months to lower non-tariff barriers and open up their economies to trade,” he speculated.

That comes as the 90-day pause on Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs,” which triggered a massive selloff on global markets in April, is nearing an end early next month.

The temporary reprieve was meant to give the U.S. and its trade partners time to negotiate deals. But aside from an agreement with the U.K. and another short-term deal with China to step back from prohibitively high tariffs, few others have been announced.

Meanwhile, negotiations are ongoing with other top trading partners. Trump administration officials have been saying for weeks that the U.S. is close to reaching deals.

On Saturday, Sløk said extending the deadline one year would give other countries and U.S. businesses more time to adjust to a “new world with permanently higher tariffs.” An extension would also immediately reduce uncertainty, giving a boost to business planning, employment, and financial markets.

“This would seem like a victory for the world and yet would produce $400 billion of annual revenue for US taxpayers,” he added. “Trade partners will be happy with only 10% tariffs and US tax revenue will go up. Maybe the administration has outsmarted all of us.”

Sløk’s speculation is notable as he previously sounded the alarm on Trump’s tariffs. In April, he warned tariffs have the potential to trigger a recession by this summer.

Also in April, before the U.S. and China reached a deal to temporarily halt triple-digit tariffs, he said the trade war between the two countries would pummel American small businesses.

More certainty on tariffs would give the Federal Reserve a clearer view on inflation as well. For now, most policymakers are in wait-and-see mode, as tariffs are expected to have stagflationary effects. But a split has emerged.

Fed Governor Christopher Waller said Friday that economic data could justify lower interest rates as early as next month, expecting only a one-off impact from tariffs. But San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly also said Friday a rate cut in the fall looks more appropriate, rather than a cut in July.

Still, Sløk isn’t alone in wondering whether Trump’s tariffs may not be as harmful to the economy and financial markets as feared.

Chris Harvey, Wells Fargo Securities’ head of equity strategy, expects tariffs to settle in the 10%-12% range, low enough to have a minimal impact, and sees the S&P 500 soaring to 7,007, making him Wall Street’s biggest bull.

He added that it’s still necessary to make progress on trade and reach deals with big economies like India, Japan and the EU. That way, markets can focus on next year, rather near-term tariff impacts.

“Then you can start to extrapolate out,” he told CNBC last month. “Then the market starts looking through things. They start looking through any sort of economic slowdown or weakness, and then we start looking to ’26 not at ’25.”