Xi Asks Trump to Avoid Restrictive Trade Measures in Call

Chinese President Xi Jinping said the US should avoid restrictive trade measures in a call Friday with US President Donald Trump, according to Xinhua News Agency, as the two leaders sought to ease tensions between the world’s biggest economies.

Xi also told Trump that the Chinese government respects the wishes of businesses as they look to finalize an agreement on the sale of the US operations of ByteDance Ltd.’s social video app TikTok and would like to see those companies find a resolution to the issue, according to the readout from Xinhua.

The official Chinese news agency characterized the talks as positive and pragmatic and said Xi had expressed confidence that Washington and Beijing could handle issues that arise between the countries, while also suggesting that the US offer a fair environment for Chinese companies to do business.

Friday’s high-stakes call was the first conversation between the leaders since June. The future of TikTok and a possible extension of an ongoing trade deal rolling back some tariffs and export restrictions was high on the agenda, with China and the US locked in a standoff over trade restrictions ensnaring key industries such as semiconductors and rare earths.

Ahead of the highly-anticipated call between the two leaders, Trump had said he expected to reach an agreement on the future of the popular video sharing app. The Friday talk followed negotiations earlier this month between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Madrid, which yielded the framework agreement for spinning off ByteDance’s US TikTok operations

In addition to TikTok, the two countries are also wrangling over chipmaker Nvidia Corp.’s access to China, currently hampered by US export controls and Chinese efforts to curb local demand for its products. The US added 32 companies to its entity list in early September, and China responded with fresh investigations of American-made chips.