Trump Hopeful About China Trade Deal After ‘Friendly’ Talks With Xi

U.S. President Donald Trump has expressing confidence in reaching a trade deal with China.

Earlier this month, Trump said that he and China’s Xi Jinping had been communicating through representatives, expressing confidence that they would get along.

Trump said that he has always had a great relationship with the Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We’ve already been talking. We’ve been talking through their representatives,” Trump said in an interview with conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt.

Discussion On Several Issues

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.

Friendly Conversation

“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.

Many Disagreements

The U.S. and China are embroiled in an array of disagreements.

These include 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.

(With inputs from Reuters)