Trump says ‘very good’ phone call with Xi builds on fragile trade truce

As relations appeared to be gaining new life since the pair’s meeting last month in South Korea, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping held a comprehensive phone call on topics including trade and Taiwan.

The US president praised the two countries’ “extremely strong” relationship hours after the call on Monday, praising the “very good” morning call that included an exchange of invitations to each other’s nations and announcing that he and Xi had spoken about the war in Ukraine, fentanyl trafficking, and a farming agreement.

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Trump said, “We now have a clear focus on the big picture, and we have agreed that communication is crucial,” and that he is looking forward to doing so. President Xi will travel to the US later this year, and President Trump has accepted an invitation to visit China in April.

Trump made no mention of Taiwan discussions. According to a report from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Xi told Trump that the island’s return to China was an “integral part of the post-war international order” created through the US-China joint campaign against “fascism and militarism.”

Xi made the comments as his nation squared off against Japan over the future of the self-governing island, which China views as its territory. Sanae Takaichi, the country’s prime minister, recently stated that the military of Japan was prepared to defend Taiwan.

Trump told Xi that the US, which continues to be Taiwan’s most important partner and supplier of weapons, “understands how important the Taiwan question is to China.”

The Trump administration’s most recent push to end Ukraine’s war also coincided with the phone call. China has asserted that it is a neutral force in the conflict. In a call on Monday, Xi stated that he was in favor of “all efforts that promote peace,” and that he hoped the crisis would be “at its core” in a letter to the Foreign Ministry.

As a result of a trade war between the two countries that rocked global markets, the two men had a personal conversation almost a month after they had met in person in Busan, South Korea.

Beijing agreed to end export restrictions on crucial minerals for a year as a result of a tentative agreement reached at the meeting in October.

After shunning the product for months, Washington announced it would lower tariffs on Chinese goods and that Beijing would increase purchases of soya beans from US farmers.

Trump claimed on Monday that he and his Chinese counterpart had spoken about “Fentanyl, Soybeans, and other Farm Products.”