Trump and China’s Xi Discuss Trade and World Peace

Sat Jan 18 2025
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Key points

  • Trump says call “a very good one”
  • Xi says both hoped for a positive start to ties
  • Discuss TikTok, trade and Taiwan
  • China is sending Vice President Han Zheng to Trump’s inauguration

ISLAMABAD: United States (US) President-elect Donald J Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed trade and world peace in a phone call on Friday.

According to Reuters, US President-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed issues including TikTok, trade and Taiwan in the phone call, just days before Trump takes office again promising tariffs that could ratchet up tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.

According to CNN, Xi sent Trump a message of congratulations after his reelection in November, telling him that the US and China “stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation,” and said he hoped the two countries could find a way “to get along with each other.”

“A very good one”

According to Reuters, both leaders were upbeat about the call, with Trump calling it “a very good one” and Xi saying he and Trump both hoped for a positive start to US-China relations, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

It was the first known phone call between the pair after Trump’s election in November.

The US and China are embroiled in an array of diplomatic and economic disagreements, including an accelerating technological and military rivalry and bitter trade disputes. Marco Rubio, Trump‘s nominee to be his secretary of state, has defined China as the gravest threat facing the US and warned about the risks of possible military conflict between the two countries.

TRUTH

The call came shortly before US Supreme Court on Friday announced a ruling upholding a law that mandates TikTok owner ByteDance divest TikTok’s US assets by Sunday to a non-Chinese buyer, or be banned on national security concerns.

“Starting immediately”

“The call was a very good one for both China and the USA. It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately. We discussed balancing Trade, Fentanyl, TikTok, and many other subjects,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.

“President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!”

Xi raised China’s concerns about Taiwan, which Beijing maintains is part of its territory, and said he hoped the US would treat the matter with great care.

President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe!” – President-elect Donald J Trump 

“The Taiwan issue concerns China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and he hopes the US side will handle it with caution,” he said according to Chinese state television.

Xi said the United States and China can have their differences but must respect each other’s core interests, and that trade relations can be mutually beneficial without confrontation and conflict, comments similar to those he made during Trump’s first term.

Chinese readout

The Chinese readout of the call said the two leaders agreed to set up a “channel of strategic communication to keep in regular touch on major issues of shared interest.”

Trump offered strong support to Taiwan, including regularizing arms sales, in his first term. But during the campaign last year, he said Taiwan should pay the US to be defended.

The Republican president-elect, who upended trade relations in his first term, is about to embark on an even more aggressive effort in his second term. He has pledged to impose an additional 10 per cent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl, and he threatened tariffs in excess of 60 per cent on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.

Trump said on January 6 that he and Xi have been communicating through representatives, expressing optimism about their relationship.

Early indicators

Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said whether Trump in coming days would permit TikTok to operate without a qualified divestment and whether he applied tariffs on China quickly or first began negotiations with Beijing would be early indicators of how confrontational his stance toward China would be.

Trump posted online later that his decision on TikTok would be coming soon, and that “everyone must respect” the Supreme Court ruling.

Breaking with tradition, Trump had invited Xi and other foreign leaders to his January 20 inauguration, but China is sending Vice President Han Zheng, a move signaling Beijing’s desire to step up communication with the incoming administration.

Still, any “grand bargain” between the two sides over trade, Taiwan and other strategic issues would be difficult to reach, said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, the Reuters reported.

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