US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) confronted weeks of brewing trade tensions and a battle over critical minerals in a leader-to-leader call that left key issues to further talks.
During the more than one-hour-long call, Xi told Trump to back down from trade measures that roiled the global economy and warned him against threatening steps on Taiwan, a Chinese government summary of the call said.
The US should handle the Taiwan issue cautiously and avoid allowing the two countries to be dragged into dangerous conflicts and confrontations by “Taiwanese separatists,” Xi was quoted as saying by China’s Xinhua news agency.
Photo: Reuters
In Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that China was deliberately distorting Taiwan’s sovereignty, citing the claims in Chinese media that the US would continue to uphold the “one China” policy.
It is a tactic that Beijing uses repeatedly when it interacts with other countries, the ministry added.
Taiwan is committed to working with allies to create regional prosperity and maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, it said.
Taiwan would continue to deepen bilateral ties with the US in areas such as security and trade, while keeping watch on the regional situation to safeguard Taiwan’s interests, it said.
Trump on social media said that the talks, focused primarily on trade, led to "a very positive conclusion," announcing further lower-level US-China discussions, and that "there should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products."
"We're in very good shape with China and the trade deal," he later told reporters later.
The leaders also invited each other to visit their respective countries.
The call came in the middle of a dispute between Washington and Beijing in the past few weeks over rare earth minerals that threatened to tear up a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two biggest economies.
It was not clear from either countries' statements that the issue had been resolved.
A US delegation led by US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer would meet with their Chinese counterparts "shortly at a location to be determined," Trump wrote on social media.
The countries on May 12 struck a 90-day deal to roll back some of the triple-digit, tit-for-tat tariffs they had placed on each other since Trump's inauguration in January.
Although stocks rallied, the temporary deal did not address broader concerns that strain the bilateral relationship, from the illicit fentanyl trade to the status of Taiwan and US complaints about China's state-dominated, export-driven economic model.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has repeatedly threatened an array of punitive measures on trading partners, only to revoke some of them at the last minute.
The on-again, off-again approach has baffled world leaders and spooked business executives.
Major US stock indices were higher on Thursday.
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 US president if economic growth sags because companies cannot make mineral-powered products.
The 90-day deal to roll back tariffs and trade restrictions is tenuous. Trump has accused China of violating the agreement and has ordered curbs on chip-design software and other shipments to China.
Beijing rejected the claim and threatened countermeasures.
"The US side should take a realistic view of the progress made and withdraw the negative measures imposed on China," the Chinese government said in a statement summarizing Xi's call with Trump published by Xinhua. "Xi Jinping emphasized that the United States should handle the Taiwan issue prudently."
In recent years, the US has identified China as its top geopolitical rival, and the only country in the world able to challenge the US economically and militarily.
Despite this and repeated tariff announcements, Trump has spoken admiringly of Xi, including of the Chinese leader's toughness and ability to stay in power without the term limits imposed on US presidents.
Trump has long pushed for a call or a meeting with Xi, but China has rejected that as not in keeping with its traditional approach of working out agreement details before the leaders talk.
The US president and his aides see leader-to-leader talks as vital to sort through log-jams that have vexed lower-level officials in difficult negotiations.
Yesterday's call came at Trump's request, China said.
It was not clear when the two men last spoke.
Both sides said they spoke on Jan. 17, days before Trump's inauguration and Trump has repeatedly said that he had spoken to Xi since taking office on Jan. 20.
He has declined to say when any call took place or to give details of their conversation.
China had said that the two leaders had not had any recent phone calls.
The talks are being closely watched by investors worried that a chaotic trade war could disrupt supply chains in the key months before the Christmas holiday shopping season.
Trump's tariffs are the subject of ongoing litigation in US courts.
Trump has met Xi on several occasions, including exchange visits in 2017, but they have not met face to face since 2019 talks in Osaka, Japan.
Xi last traveled to the US in November 2023, for a summit with then-US president Joe Biden, resulting in agreements to resume military-to-military communications and curb fentanyl production.
Additional reporting by CNA and Fion Khan
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