Trump and XI have spoken on the phone for the first time since the US president unleashed the commercial war on his return to the White House, according to the Chinese agency Xinhua. His last known conversation had taken place in January, before the investiture of the American president, on January 20.
“I just concluded a very good telephone conversation with President XI”; Trump has published this Thursday, “in which we discussed some of the most complex aspects of the commercial agreement that we signed and agreed recently. The call lasted about an hour and a half, and had a very positive outcome for both. There should be no doubt about the complexity of rare earth derivatives. Our respective teams will meet shortly, in a place yet to be determined. On the part of the United States, the Secretary of the Tesor will be present Besent;
“During the conversation” said Trump, “President XI was kindness to invite the first lady to visit China, and I extended the same invitation. As presidents of two great nations, it is something that we both expect with interest. The conversation focused almost exclusively on trade. There were no issues related to Russia/Ukraine soon”.
The relations between Washington and Beijing have deteriorated in recent weeks, with Trump accusations to break the commercial truce that had significantly reduced tariffs, without explaining the reason or reasons.
“Two weeks ago, China was in serious economic danger! The very high tariffs that I imposed made it practically impossible for China to trade in the US market, which is, by far, the number one in the world”; Trump said in his social network a few days ago: “In practice, we cut our commercial relationships with China, and that was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it gently,” civil disturbances. “I saw what was happening and I did not like, for them, not for us. I made a quick agreement with China to save them from what I thought it would be a very serious situation, and I did not want to see that. Everything stabilized quickly and China operated normally.
As usual in Trump, he speaks of closed factories, disturbances and devastation without giving a single data or concretion of something that no one had previously informed.
In recent days, Bloomberg explains, rare earths have become a new voltage focus. The US accuses China of breaking its promise to make export controls of these key metals for the manufacture of advanced technology more flexible. Beijing, meanwhile, is upset by the new US restrictions for the sale of chips design software and for the plans to revoke visa to Chinese students.
To the commercial and technological tensions, the visa restrictions to the Chinese students approved by the US State Secretari, Marco Rubio, have been added lately.
A week ago Rubio announced that, “under the leadership of President Trump, the State Department will work together with the Department of National Security to aggressively revoke the visas of Chinese students, including those with links with the Chinese Communist Party or study in strategic sectors.”
“Likewise,” said Rubio, “the visa concession criteria will be reviewed to increase the level of scrutiny in all future requests from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong.”
In addition, The New York Times said the Trump administration has recently suspended sales to China from critical technologies manufactured in the United States, including those related to reaction engines, semiconductors and specific chemicals.
The measure, according to the newspaper, responded to the recent restrictions imposed by Beijing to the export of strategic minerals to the US, a decision that, according to sources known to the matter, threatens to paralyze the supply chains New York Times.
Trump, who thinks that he can only do and undo anything, has said many times that only direct conversations with XI can resolve the differences between the two countries, but the Chinese president had so far shown that bilateral contact with his American counterpart, preferring to leave negotiations in the hands of his team.
Source: www.eldiario.es
