White House gets defensive when asked if Xi and Trump have talked about the future of tariffs

With economists and business leaders warning of impending disaster from the massive import taxes placed on most Chinese imports by President Donald Trump, the White House is still playing coy about whether the president and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have spoken about de-escalating the ongoing trade war between Beijing and Washington.

Asked whether he could confirm any conversations between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dodged a reporter’s query on the subject at a Tuesday morning White House press briefing by suggesting that knowing whether any conversations had taken place was outside the perimeter of his job responsibilities.

“I would say [White House Press Secretary] Karoline {Leavitt] and I have a lot of jobs around the White House, running the switchboard isn’t one of them,” he said.

Bessent also said he would not “get into the nitty-gritty ... of who’s talking to whom” and told reporters that the possibility of including a Sino-American trade deal among the 18 major trade negotiations that are currently ongoing would be “put to the side” even as 17 others are “in motion.”

According to public records and reporting, the last time Trump and Xi spoke by phone was on January 17, three days before Trump was sworn in for his second term as president.

In the 103 days that have elapsed since that phone call, Trump has taken a meat ax to the global trading system — as well as the vital U.S.-China trade relationship — by unilaterally imposing import taxes of 145 percent, effectively more than doubling the price Americans must pay for a wide range of products.

Beijing has retaliated with a 125 percent tariff on anything its’ own citizens buy that is imported from the U.S. but exempted some American-made semiconductor products.

Trump has repeatedly claimed in recent days that he and Xi have spoken about resolving the standoff. He told Time magazine last week that Xi had called him. And on Friday, he claimed to have spoken with the Chinese leader “numerous times” during a brief question-and-answer session with reporters before leaving the White House for the late Pope Francis’ funeral over the weekend.

Other Trump officials have said they are engaging with their Chinese counterparts, including Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, the latter of whom claimed that the Trump administration was in contact with Beijing “every day” during an appearance on CNN.

“According to our team in Washington, the conversations are ongoing regarding multiples of trade, multiples of the trade goods that are coming out and going in,” she said.

Yet the Chinese Foreign Ministry has repeatedly and vehemently denied that any leader-to-leader talks have occurred, most recently on Monday when spokesperson Guo Jiakun said “the two heads of state have not called each other recently” — at least as far as he knew.

"I would like to reiterate that China and the U.S. have not conducted consultations or negotiations on the tariffs issue,” he said.

"If the U.S. really wants to solve the problem through dialogue and negotiation, it should stop threatening and blackmailing [China],” he added.