China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Trump began a phone conversation with Xi Jinping and said communication is important for developing stable U.S.-China relations.
Published November 26, 2025
A day after the Chinese side described the phone call between the two leaders as “positive, friendly and constructive,” President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping “more or less agreed” to increase purchases of products from the United States.
President Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Tuesday night that during a phone call, he asked the Chinese leader to accelerate purchases from the United States.
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“We will be pleasantly surprised by President Xi’s actions,” Trump said.
“I’ve asked him to buy it sooner, to buy it more, and he’s more or less agreed to that,” he said.
President Trump’s optimistic outlook on trade with China comes after China announced last month that it would resume purchases of U.S. soybeans and halt expanded restrictions on rare earth exports to the U.S. amid a easing of tensions in its tariff war with the United States.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged that China would buy 12 million tons of soybeans from U.S. farmers this year, but Reuters reported that the pace of China’s purchases was lower than initially expected.
China has so far ordered about 2 million tons of U.S. soybeans, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, Reuters reported.
Monday’s phone call between Trump and Xi came just weeks after the two leaders met in South Korea and agreed on a framework for a trade deal that has yet to be finalized.
“China and the United States once fought together against fascism and militarism, but now we should work together to protect the results of World War II,” Xi told Trump in a phone conversation, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
President Xi also told President Trump that “Taiwan’s return to China is an essential part of the postwar international order.”
China considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to unify the self-governing, democratic island with mainland China.
The United States has traditionally opposed the possibility of China using force to occupy Taiwan, and domestic law requires it to provide Taipei with sufficient military equipment to thwart an armed attack.
But President Trump maintains strategic ambiguity over whether to send U.S. troops in the event of war in the Taiwan Strait, while his administration has asked Taiwan to increase its defense budget.
In a subsequent Truth Social post, Trump did not mention Xi’s comments about Taiwan, but instead spoke of a “very good” phone call with the Chinese leader, which he said covered a number of topics, including Ukraine, fentanyl and U.S. agricultural products.
“Our relationship with China is very strong! This call was a follow-up to our highly successful meeting in South Korea three weeks ago. Since then, both sides have made significant progress in keeping our agreements current and accurate,” President Trump said.
“Now we can look at the big picture,” he said.
The U.S. leader also said he accepted Xi’s invitation to visit Beijing in April and invited Xi to visit the United States as a state guest at the end of the year.
China’s Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday that the US initiated the telephone conversation between President Trump and Xi, which Spokesperson Mao Ning described as “positive, friendly and constructive.”
Mao also said that “communication between the leaders of the two countries on matters of common interest is extremely important for the stable development of China-US relations.”
Additional reporting by Bonnie Liao.
