China’s Foreign Ministry said Trump initiated dialogue with Xi Jinping and that communication was important to developing stable US-China relations.
President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping has “more or less agreed” to increase purchases of goods from the United States, a day after a phone call between the two leaders that Beijing described as “positive, friendly and constructive.”
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday evening, Trump said he asked the Chinese leader during the call to speed up purchases from the US.
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“I think we will be pleasantly surprised by President Xi’s actions,” Trump said.
He said, “I asked him, I want you to buy it a little sooner. I want you to buy more. And he more or less agreed to do that.”
Trump’s upbeat forecast on trade with China comes after Beijing announced last month that it would resume purchases of U.S. soybeans and halt extended restrictions on rare earth exports to the U.S. amid tensions in the tariff war with Washington.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said China had promised to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans from US farmers this year, but Reuters news agency reports that the pace of Chinese purchases has been slower than initially expected.
According to US Department of Agriculture data, China has ordered nearly two million metric tons of US soybeans so far, Reuters reports.
The talks between Trump and Xi on Monday came just weeks after the two leaders met in South Korea, where they agreed on the outline of a trade deal that has not yet been finalized.
“China and the United States once fought side by side against fascism and militarism, and now they must work together to safeguard the results of World War II,” Xi told Trump in the call, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
Xi also told Trump that “Taiwan’s return to China is an integral part of the post-war international order”.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to unify the self-ruled, democratic island with the Chinese mainland.
The US has traditionally opposed China’s potential use of force to annex Taiwan and is obliged under domestic law to provide Taiwan with sufficient military hardware to deter any armed attack.
But Trump has maintained strategic ambiguity about whether he would commit U.S. troops to the Taiwan Strait in the event of war, while his administration has urged Taiwan to increase its defense budget.
Trump made no mention of Xi’s comments on Taiwan in a subsequent post on Truth Social, where he spoke of a “very good” call with the Chinese leader in which he said a range of topics were discussed, including Ukraine, fentanyl and US agricultural products.
Trump said, “Our relationship with China is extremely strong! This call follows our very successful meeting in South Korea three weeks ago. Since then, there has been significant progress on both sides in keeping our agreements current and accurate.”
“Now we can focus on the bigger picture,” he said.
The US leader also said he had accepted Xi’s invitation to visit Beijing in April, and invited Xi to pay a state visit to the US at the end of the year.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Washington had initiated talks between Trump and Xi, which spokesman Mao Ning called “positive, friendly and constructive.”
Mao also said that “communication between the two heads of state on issues of common concern is important for the stable development of China-US relations”.
Additional reporting by Bonnie Liao.
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