China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu held a telephone conversation with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau on Friday, with both sides agreeing to maintain ongoing communication, according to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement released Friday.
What Happened: The diplomatic engagement comes as a 90-day U.S.-China trade truce nears its deadline, with former U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, calling the lack of direct communication between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping “horrible.”
The leaders have not spoken directly since Trump’s Jan. 17 pre-inauguration call, despite Trump’s expressed willingness to visit China for talks.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently clarified that the U.S. will “continue trading with China” while reshoring critical supply chains, signaling potential flexibility in trade relations that could impact major U.S. companies with Chinese exposure.
See Also: Goldman Sachs Taps This Defense Stock As Prime Beneficiary Of Trump’s $175B Golden Dome
Why It Matters: The dialogue occurs against escalating tech tensions. China threatened legal action against entities supporting U.S. semiconductor restrictions, following Washington’s guidance warning companies against using Huawei Technologies‘ Ascend AI chips.
NVIDIA Corp. NVDA CEO Jensen Huang criticized U.S. chip export controls as “exactly wrong for America,” revealing his company wrote off $5.5 billion in inventory due to restrictions.
Trade complexities deepened with China’s criticism of the recent U.S.-UK trade pact, which Beijing called detrimental to third-party interests. Chinese researcher Zhang Yansheng described such agreements as “poison pill clauses” worse than tariffs, as Washington attempts to isolate China from supply chains.
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