Beijing/Washington: Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump had lengthy talks over phone Thursday to iron out differences over their tit-for-tat tariffs and agreed to have more talks between their trade representatives to resolve the trade standoff.
During the talks, Xi also asked Trump to handle the Taiwan issue prudently as the two sides held the conversation with Trump “at the latter’s request”, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
After the phone calls, Trump in a post on Truth Social said, “I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi, of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal”.
“The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both countries. There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products”, he said, referring to Beijing blocking rare earth metals exports crucial to manufacturing automobiles, phones and missiles.
“Our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined”, he said
The US will be represented by Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and United States Trade Representative, Ambassador Jamieson Greer, he said.
“During the conversation, President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated”, he said.
“As Presidents of two Great Nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing. The conversation was focused almost entirely on TRADE”, he said.
“Nothing was discussed concerning Russia/Ukraine, or Iran. We will inform the Media as to scheduling and location of the soon to be meeting” he said.
An official press release in Beijing said Xi told Trump that China seriously implemented the Geneva agreement to reduce tariffs.
The US should look at the progress made in a realistic way and withdraw the negative measures it has taken against China, Xi told Trump.
Dialogue and cooperation is the only right choice, Xi said.
The two sides need to make good use of the economic and trade consultation mechanism already in place, and seek win-win results in the spirit of equality and respect for each other’s concerns. The Chinese side is sincere about this, and at the same time has its principles, Xi said.
The US side should acknowledge the progress already made in Geneva talks and remove the negative measures taken against China, the press release quoted Xi as saying.
The two sides should enhance communication in such fields as foreign affairs, economy and trade, military, and law enforcement to build consensus, clear up misunderstandings, and strengthen cooperation, Xi said.
He also emphasised that the “US must handle the Taiwan question with prudence, so that the fringe separatists bent on ‘Taiwan independence’ will not be able to drag China and America into the dangerous terrain of confrontation and even conflict”.
China claims Taiwan as part of its homeland and periodically conducts military drills practising its take-over.
Trump said the US welcomes Chinese students to study in America, the Chinese press release said.
Roughly about 2.7 lakh Chinese students, the second largest after India studying in the US, scrambled to work out their future plans after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced May 29 that America will begin revoking the visas of some Chinese students, including those studying in “critical fields” and “those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party”.
Trump said that he has great respect for President Xi, and the US-China relationship is very important.
“ The US wants the Chinese economy to do very well. The US and China working together can get a lot of great things done. The US will honour the one-China policy”, meaning Taiwan as part of China.
The two presidents agreed that their teams should continue implementing the Geneva agreement and hold another round of meetings as soon as possible.
Both the US and China agreed to temporarily lower tit-for-tat tariffs after talks last month in Geneva. The truce is due to last 90 days to provide time for the top two economies to reach a broader substantive agreement to end their tariff war.
Trump imposed 145 per cent of tariffs against the Chinese exports of about $439.9 billion and China retaliated with 125 per cent on American exports of about $143 billion.
China also put restrictions on the exports of the rare earth minerals, which are all critical materials for defence, new energy batteries, semiconductors and advanced manufacturing and Beijing has not lifted the curbs.
Under the Geneva agreement, the US lowered tariffs imposed on goods from China from 145 per cent to 30 per cent while China dropped its retaliatory tariffs from 125 per cent to ten per cent.
The recriminations began after Trump said on Friday that China had “totally violated its agreement with us” but did not give details.
However, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later told media China had not been removing non-tariff barriers especially the export curbs on rare earth metals as agreed under the deal.
AP
