- Saturday, June 07, 2025
Trump said the call reached a “very positive conclusion” with both sides agreeing to talks to prevent an all-out trade war over tariffs and global rare earth supplies
By: India Weekly
US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke on the phone on Thursday (5), and the two leaders agreed to meet in person at a later date.
“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.
Trump said the call reached a “very positive conclusion” with both sides agreeing to talks to prevent an all-out trade war over tariffs and global rare earth supplies.
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 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 per cent on its goods as both sides engaged in tit-for-tat escalation.
China’s countermeasures on US goods reached 125 per cent.
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.
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.
This comes just days after US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said China posed an “imminent” threat to the self-governed island.
Hegseth told the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore that Beijing was “credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power”.
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 per cent from Wednesday.
China’s decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets continues to disrupt supplies needed by automakers, computer chip manufacturers and military contractors around the world.
Beijing sees mineral exports as a source of leverage – halting those exports could put domestic political pressure on the Republican U.S. president if economic growth sags because companies cannot make mineral-powered products.
