BIARRITZ, France -- After several days of statements about China that brought new tariffs, olive branches, countermeasures and reversals, President Donald Trump on Monday said trade negotiations are set to resume once more.
"We've gotten two calls and very, very good calls," Trump told reporters at the Group of Seven summit. "Very productive calls. They mean business. They want to be able to make a deal."
Trump later clarified that the calls had occurred as recently as Sunday evening. Other administration officials were more circumspect, and it wasn't clear how substantive any interaction had been.
"There were discussions that went back and forth, let's leave it at that," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters.
Stocks in New York rallied after Trump's comments, reversing some of the major indexes' hefty losses from Friday.
The comments were similar to ones Trump has made for more than a year, and his public optimism has been repeatedly dashed. The White House announced weeks ago that China's negotiating team was expected in Washington in September to continue the discussions.
But he insists that this time is different. He said the new talks "were much more meaningful than at any time."
At a closing news conference, the president seized on comments by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at a business forum in Chongqing on Monday as evidence that Beijing remains willing to talk.
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"China is willing to resolve problems calmly through consultation and resolutely opposes the escalation of the trade war," Liu said, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. "Any escalation will run against the interests of the people of China, the United States and the whole world."
Though Chinese officials have made similar comments for months, Trump described Liu's statement as "a little bit different" and said it was significant because of his high title, which the president mistakenly described as "vice chairman."
Chinese officials want to make a deal to escape the trade war's economic costs, Trump said. The tariffs he has imposed on Chinese goods are costing China 3 million jobs as foreign manufacturers move their factories to other countries, the president added.
ECONOMIC CONCERNS
Trump was unapologetic amid concerns -- including those expressed by French President Emmanuel Macron -- that his shifts in rhetoric and policies are hurting the global economy.
"Sorry -- it's the way I negotiate," the president said. "It's done very well for me over the years."
Trump's comments came as he is under growing pressure to convince voters, business leaders and his foreign counterparts that his adversarial trade approach will ultimately work.
The U.S. economy appears to be slowing, domestic manufacturing has weakened and U.S. businesses have halted many decisions while they wait to see how Trump's trade deals work out. Foreign leaders, meanwhile, have become increasingly nervous that trade wars launched by Trump could knock numerous countries into a recession.
Trump said on Sunday and Monday that he had reached a trade deal with Japan, only to have his claims called into question when Japanese officials described the status of the talks.
And Chinese officials didn't confirm the major progress Trump had cited.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said he was "not aware" of any such phone calls with Trump.
"Regarding the phone call in the weekend, I am not aware of that," he told a news briefing on Monday afternoon.
However, he reiterated that China wanted the trade dispute to be resolved through dialogue.
"We hope the U.S. can return to reason as soon as possible and create conditions for consultations based on mutual respect," Geng said.
Trump has made a flurry of comments about at least four different trade negotiations he is trying to broker, and the comments are frequently conflicting and imprecise.
Sitting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday, Trump said a trade deal was "done in principle" between the two countries. He said the deal would mean "billions and billions" of dollars in new trade for U.S. companies and that it would lead to huge new purchases of U.S.-produced corn.
He repeated his claims about the Japanese trade deal on Monday morning and complained it hadn't received enough positive press coverage.
But shortly after his Monday comments, Japanese officials held a news briefing and told a different story. They said there had been progress but there were still a number of unresolved issues and that a final deal wasn't assured.
"We are not calling it an agreement in principle," said Takeshi Osuga, press secretary for Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "We are calling it a conference of views on the core elements. There is more work left to be done by the bureaucrats than just legal scrubbing."
Trump also said he is trying to broker a new trade deal with France or he might level tariffs on French wine.
Macron said Monday that France and the U.S. struck a "very good agreement" to defuse tensions over a French tax on online giants like Google.
The tax had prompted threats from Trump of heavy tariffs on French wine. But after the G-7 summit, Trump effectively glossed over that issue, leaving it unclear whether the threat of a tax on French wine was now moot and off the table.
Macron, speaking later on French TV, suggested that Trump was simply being a cagey negotiator, waiting for the outcome of promised talks on an international tax on Internet giants.
Trump promised British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that they would sign a big trade pact but gave no details or schedule for progress.
TRUMP PRAISES XI
His comments on China and trade are constantly shifting. On Friday, he suggested that Chinese leader Xi Jinping was one of the U.S.' greatest enemies. On Monday, Trump was praising Xi as a leader and deal-maker.
Complicating matters, Trump has frequently said pending trade talks are finished when they are not. He has said in public that his approach is successful, but many of the talks keep running into complications and falter.
Trump has upended the traditional international trade regime, threatening to withdraw from long-standing pacts, insisting on bilateral trade deals, and arguing that the United States has been ripped off for decades because of weak "free trade" deals that cost U.S. jobs.
On Monday, he seemed acutely aware of his growing critics, including Democrats and Republicans, who have alleged that Trump's playbook isn't working and is doing more to damage the U.S. economy than help. He said, for example, that he had boosted the U.S. economy so much, and inflicted so much damage on the Chinese economy, that he has proved his critics wrong.
"All these clowns that are sitting on television that have been running this country for many years that have been taken to the cleaners by China, they are all sitting there saying 'I don't think the president is negotiating properly,'" Trump said. "I don't know what they are talking about. I have great respect for the fact that China called, they want to make a deal."
His dismissal of past trade pacts has proved popular with many of his supporters, particularly blue-collar workers in the Midwest. Even many Democrats and labor groups have been sharply critical of past trade pacts, but so far Trump's attempts to rewrite trade rules have only had mixed success.
Information for this article was contributed by Damian Paletta, David J. Lynch and Anna Fifield of The Washington Post; and by Zeke Miller and Darlene Superville of The Associated Press.
A Section on 08/27/2019