Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke Thursday, with both sides agreeing to talks to prevent an all-out trade war over tariffs and global rare earth supplies. Trump said the call reached a “very positive conclusion” and that they agreed to meet in person — but Beijing issued a more muted readout saying that Xi spoke of a need to “correct the course” of ties.
The call — the first to be publicly announced since Trump returned to power in January — comes after Beijing and Washington accused each other of jeopardizing a trade war truce agreed last month in Geneva. Trump said a high-level US trade team including his treasury secretary, commerce secretary, and US trade representative would meet Chinese officials soon. “The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both countries,” Trump said on Truth Social.
“President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated. As Presidents of two great nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing,” he added. Trump said they would announce the time and place later. But the leaders did not discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump said, despite long-standing US hopes that Beijing could exert influence over Moscow to end the war. “The conversation was focused almost entirely on TRADE,” said Trump, adding that they hoped to have resolved issues over crucial rare earth minerals used in tech products.
Relations between superpower rivals Beijing and Washington have been fraught since April, when Trump introduced sweeping worldwide tariffs that targeted China most heavily. At one point, the United States hit China with additional levies of 145 percent on its goods as both sides engaged in tit-for-tat escalation. China’s countermeasures on US goods reached 125 percent. Trump had described Xi as recently as Wednesday as “extremely hard to make a deal with.” Chinese state media said Trump had requested the call. There was no immediate confirmation from the White House.
– ‘Correcting the course’ –
In its more restrained readout, Beijing said that relations needed more work. “Correcting the course of the big ship of Sino-US relations requires us to steer well and set the direction, especially to eliminate all kinds of interference and even destruction, which is particularly important,” Xi told Trump, according to state news agency Xinhua. The agency reported that the pair discussed the self-ruled democratic island of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory and has threatened to seize by force. Xi warned his US counterpart that Washington should handle the issue “with caution” to avoid Taiwanese separatists “dragging China and the United States into the danger of conflict,” Xinhua said.
But Xi also extended Trump a welcome to return to China, according to the agency, following an earlier trip during his first term in 2017. Until Thursday, the two leaders had not had any confirmed contact since the Republican returned to power in January, despite frequent claims by the US president that such a call was imminent. Beijing and Washington agreed in Geneva last month to slash their staggeringly high tariffs for 90 days, but the two sides have since traded blame for derailing the deal. Trump argued last week that China had “totally violated” the terms, without providing further details.
China’s commerce ministry hit back by saying the Trump administration had introduced “discriminatory restrictive measures,” including revoking some Chinese student visas in the United States. Trump has separately ramped up tensions with other trade partners, including the European Union, by vowing to double global tariffs on steel and aluminum to 50 percent from Wednesday.
© 2024 AFP
