China sought to depict a call between Xi Jinping and President Trump as an appeal from one strongman leader to another to run a tight ship and stay on course.

Trump said in his Truth Social post that the hour-and-a-half conversation phone call was “focused almost entirely on TRADE,” while the Chinese readout singled out Xi’s stern warning on Taiwan – the reddest of lines for Beijing – and the issue of Chinese student visas.

In early May, after two intense days of negotiations in Switzerland, Washington and Beijing agreed to drastically suspend most tariffs imposed since April 2 for 90 days. After the start of a trade war 2.