US president Donald Trump said his conversation with Chinese president Xi Jinping last week was friendly and he thought he could reach a trade deal with China.
The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies discussed issues including TikTok, trade and Taiwan in a phone call before Mr Trump took office on Monday.
Since taking office, the Republican has spoken about a 10 per cent punitive duty on Chinese imports because he says the devastating drug fentanyl is being sent from China to the US via Mexico and Canada.
However, he did not immediately impose tariffs as he had promised during his election campaign. Mr Trump has also threatened tariffs against the European Union, Mexico and Canada.
“It went fine. It was a good, friendly conversation,” he said of his call with Mr Xi during an interview with Fox News aired on Thursday.
“I can do that,” Mr Trump said in the interview when asked if he could make a deal with China over fair trade practices.
He said he would rather not use tariffs against China but called tariffs a “tremendous power”.
“But we have one very big power over China, and that’s tariffs, and they don’t want them, and I’d rather not have to use it, but it’s a tremendous power over China.”
The US and China are embroiled in an array of diplomatic and economic disagreements, including an accelerating technological and military rivalry, bitter trade disputes and Washington’s concerns with the ownership of popular social media app TikTok, whose parent company is Chinese firm ByteDance.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump is on Friday heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles, using the first trip of his second administration to tour areas where politics has clouded the response to deadly disasters.
He has criticised his predecessor Joe Biden for his administration’s response in North Carolina.
He has also showered disdain on Californian leaders for water policies that he falsely claimed worsened the recent blazes and said he is considering overhauling the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Some of his conservative allies have proposed reducing how much the agency reimburses states for handling floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and other calamities.
Mr Trump has suggested using federal disaster assistance as a bargaining chip during unrelated legislative negotiations over government borrowing or as leverage to persuade California to change its water policies.
He has falsely insisted that California water policies, specifically fish conservation efforts in the northern part of the state, contributed to hydrants running dry in the Los Angeles area.
“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let the water run down,” Mr Trump said in an interview with Fox News.
The president also suggested shifting more responsibility to individual states for managing disasters. “I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” he told Hannity, adding that “FEMA is getting in the way of everything.” – Reuters/AP
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