BEIJING (Reuters): President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will likely speak this week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday, days after Trump accused China of violating an agreement to roll back tariffs and trade restrictions.
Leavitt is the third top Trump aide to forecast an imminent call between the two leaders to iron out differences on last month's tariff agreement in Geneva, among larger trade issues.
It was not immediately clear when the two leaders will speak.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday that Trump and Xi would speak "very soon" to iron out trade issues including a dispute over critical minerals and China's restrictions on exports of certain minerals.
Trump said on Friday he was sure that he would speak to Xi. China said in April that the two leaders had not had a conversation recently.
On Saturday, the U.S. Trade Representative's office announced it would continue to exclude certain solar manufacturing equipment and other products from existing tariffs on Chinese goods until August 31, offering a three-month extension while talks with Beijing continue.
Bessent led negotiations with China in Geneva last month that resulted in a temporary truce in the trade war between the world's two biggest economies, but progress since then has been slow, the U.S. Treasury chief told Fox News last week.
The US-China agreement to dial back triple-digit tariffs for 90 days prompted a massive relief rally in global stocks.
But it did nothing to address the underlying reasons for Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods, mainly longstanding U.S. complaints about China's state-dominated, export-driven economic model, leaving those issues for future talks.
A US trade court on Wednesday ruled that Trump overstepped his authority in imposing the bulk of his tariffs on imports from China and other countries under an emergency powers act.
But less than 24 hours later, a federal appeals court reinstated the tariffs, saying it was pausing the trade court ruling to consider the government's appeal. The appeals court ordered the plaintiffs to respond by June 5 and the administration to respond by June 9.
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson, Doina Chiacu and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Rod Nickel) - Reuters
