BEIJING (Reuters) -China confirmed that President Xi Jinping will meet U.S. President Donald Trump in South Korea on Thursday, setting up a widely anticipated encounter that traders and investors on both sides of the Pacific hope will ease months of trade tensions.
“The two heads of state will have in-depth communications on strategic and long-term issues,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday, without making a direct reference to the trade deal the leaders of the world’s two largest economies are expected to agree on while in the port city of Busan.
“We are willing to make joint efforts with the United States to promote the positive results of this meeting and provide new guidance and impetus for the stable development of China-U.S. relations,” Guo Jiakun added.
Trump, earlier on Wednesday, said that he and President Xi were going to achieve “a good deal” for the two countries, aboard Air Force One en route to South Korea.
Expectations that Trump and Xi would meet have helped stabilise markets over the past month after renewed tensions raised fears that the two leaders might walk away from talks aimed at resolving a tariff war that has upended global supply chains.
Washington has blamed the trade war escalation on Beijing’s new rare earth export controls, while China maintains it stemmed from the U.S. further limiting Chinese firms’ ability to invest in America.
Xi will be in South Korea from Thursday to Saturday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting and a state visit to the country. Trump will not attend the regional summit meeting.
Washington and Beijing are also at loggerheads over fentanyl flows, high-end chips, rare earth controls and soybeans.
China’s state-owned COFCO bought three U.S. soybean cargoes ahead of the talks, trade sources said, the country’s first purchases from this year’s U.S. harvest, and a move analysts said likely represented a goodwill gesture ahead of the talks.
(Reporting by Colleen Howe in Beijing; Writing by Joe Cash and Shi Bu; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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