Trump says he could reach trade deal with China, calls talk with Xi ‘friendly’

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said his conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week was friendly and he thought he could reach a trade deal with China.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies discussed issues including TikTok, trade and Taiwan in a phone call before Trump took office on Monday.

Since taking office, Trump has spoken about a 10% punitive duty on Chinese imports because he says fentanyl is being sent from China to the U.S. via Mexico and Canada. However, he did not immediately impose tariffs as he had promised during his election campaign. Trump has also threatened tariffs against the European Union, Mexico and Canada.

KEY QUOTES

“It went fine. It was a good, friendly conversation,” Trump said of his call with Xi in an interview with Fox News aired on Thursday evening.

“I can do that,” Trump said in the interview when asked if he could make a deal with China over fair trade practices.

Trump said he would rather not use tariffs against China but called tariffs a “tremendous power.”

“But we have one very big power over China, and that’s tariffs, and they don’t want them, and I’d rather not have to use it, but it’s a tremendous power over China,” Trump added.

CONTEXT

The U.S. and China are embroiled in an array of diplomatic and economic disagreements, including an accelerating technological and military rivalry, bitter trade disputes and Washington’s concerns with the ownership of famous social media app TikTok, whose parent company is Chinese firm ByteDance.