US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he recently had a conversation with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, which he termed as ‘friendly’,
In an interview, the Republican leader has also suggested that he was confident about reaching a trade deal with China.
“It went fine. It was a good, friendly conversation,” Trump told Fox News.
Talking about making a deal over fair trade practices, Trump said that it was possible for him to achieve that with Xi, who he termed as ‘ambitious’.
“I can do that,” the newly-installed US President said.
Trump had also posted an update about his phone call with XI on his social media platform Truth Social, saying that they discussed a range of issues from balancing trade to TikTok.
“We discussed balancing Trade, Fentanyl, TikTok, and many other subjects. President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!” he said in his post.
The phone call happened last Friday, days before Donald Trump took office as the 47th President of the United States. Xi said he hoped for a “good start” to relations with Trump, who in turn said “it is my expectation that we will solve many problems together.”
Donald Trump’s tarriff threat to China
Since taking office, Donald Trump has spoken about a 10% punitive duty on Chinese imports because he says fentanyl is being sent from China to the US 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.
The US and China are embroiled in an array of diplomatic and economic disagreements, including an accelerating technological and military rivalry, bitter trade disputes.
Washington is also concerned with the ownership of famous social media app TikTok, whose parent company is Chinese firm ByteDance. While the US Supreme Court had upheld a law that banned TikTok, Trump issued an executive order postponing the ban and asking TikTok to sell its US business.
