Trump's trade deal accusations are deemed "groundless" by China.

As tensions increase over exports of rare earths, computer chips, and student visas, China and the US are accusing one another of breaking their tariff ceasefire.

China said Monday that the Trump administration's claims that it had violated a trade war truce by preventing access to essential commodities were "baseless," claiming that the United States had "seriously undermined" the accord with its ban on Chinese students and microchips.

Administration officials said Beijing was taking its time approving export licenses for rare earths required to produce products like consumer electronics and jet engines after President Donald Trump twice accused China on Friday of breaking an agreement agreed last month.

Only three weeks ago, the two nations announced a 90-day halt to their tariff war, which had severely reduced trade between the two biggest economies in the world. While the two parties worked on a formal agreement, they decided to lower triple-digit tariffs, which are essentially an embargo, to levels that would at least permit trade to continue.

However, the charges and disputes regarding the precise terms of the Geneva deal are already putting pressure on that interim ceasefire.

China's Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Monday that "the United States has unilaterally sparked fresh economic and trade difficulties" by proposing export restrictions on AI chips and canceling Chinese student visas. "Instead of self-reflection, it has unjustly condemned China for breaching the deal and made false charges."

The latest discussions show how far apart the two sides are on a number of topics, with the disagreement over whether Beijing is acting quickly enough to relax its export limits on vital minerals and rare earths ranking close to the top of the list.

Despite asserting that the purpose of tariffs was to lessen dependency on Chinese goods rather than "decouple" from it, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent charged on Sunday that Beijing was retaining vital minerals and rare earths that it had pledged to "release" in Geneva. "It might be a malfunction in the Chinese system, or it might be deliberate," Bessent told CBS.

Days after the Geneva talks, the Commerce Department issued guidance that infuriated China. The guidance warned that the sale or use of Ascend AI chips, manufactured by the Chinese technology giant Huawei, anywhere in the world could violate U.S. export controls. Beijing claimed that the ruling went against the spirit of the trade agreement.

According to Da Wei, an international relations specialist at Tsinghua University in Beijing, "the broad picture is that the two sides continued conversations after Geneva, but if you look at the details, it is more complicated, and each side is still doing things that could undermine that big image."

Commentators with ties to the Chinese government have increasingly connected U.S. technology controls with rare earths.

Hu Xijin, a well-known nationalist commentator and former editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times, stated that Beijing should only think about loosening limitations on rare earths if the United States eases its prohibitions on the shipment of advanced semiconductors to China.

Hu posted on WeChat, a social media app, on Saturday, saying, "China should not give up its rare earth trump card, no matter what pressure the U.S. applies or what shenanigans it performs."

These commonly used metals can be found all over the world, but they are challenging to extract and purify. China, which produced 92% of the world's processed rare earths last year, now supplies nearly all of the world's supply after decades of investment.

China's decision to cut off U.S. access to certain rare earth metals in response to tariffs left senior administration officials frantically trying to mitigate the economic repercussions because these metals are essential for the manufacturing of electric vehicles, military drones, and even medications.

China's leaders and state media have repeatedly stated that it cannot completely eliminate curbs, despite the country's vow during Geneva to "halt or remove" nontariff countermeasures implemented since Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs were announced on April 2.