China's Xi Jinping holds phone call with Trump amid faltering trade ties

China's President Xi Jinping (R) shakes hands with US President Donald Trump before a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Osaka on June 29, 2019.

Chinese President Xi Jinping held a telephonic conversation with US President Donald Trump on Thursday amid faltering trade ties between the two countries, reported AFP.

The talks took place at Trump's request, the Xinhua news agency said without elaborating, and come as Washington and Beijing clash over areas such as trade and student visas.

The phone call marks the first interaction between the two leaders since Trump’s second inauguration as president.

Meanwhile, Chinese media outlet Xinhua reported quoting Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the call was initiated by Trump.

As per a report by CNN, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Monday said the two leaders would likely speak “this week,” while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in an interview with CBS’ Face the Nation that aired Sunday said he believed that issues between the two sides would be “ironed out” in a leader-level call “very soon.”

The call came a day after Trump described his Chinese counterpart as “extremely hard to make a deal with” and in a week that both countries have accused each other of reneging on a trade truce signed in Geneva last month.

Last week, Trump said that China has “totally violated” a trade agreement hastily brokered just weeks ago to save Beijing from economic collapse triggered by his own aggressive tariff strategy.

In a Truth Social post, Trump recounted how his sweeping tariffs - some exceeding 100% - had sent China’s economy into a tailspin, forcing factory closures and sparking what he described as “civil unrest.” Trump claimed he intervened with a “FAST DEAL” out of concern for China’s stability, only to be betrayed.

Washington and Beijing agreed last month to pause reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, a surprise de-escalation in their bitter trade war following talks between top officials in Geneva.

China's commerce ministry said this week the Trump administration had since introduced "discriminatory restrictive measures", including revoking Chinese student visas in the United States.

Beijing has also accused the Washington of “seriously violating” of the Geneva agreement by issuing new warnings on using Huawei chips globally, halting sales of chip design software to Chinese companies and cancelling visas for Chinese students.