U.S. President Donald Trump said his conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week was friendly and that he thought he could reach a trade deal with China.

The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies discussed TikTok, trade, and Taiwan, among other issues, in a phone call before Mr Trump took office on Monday.

Since taking office, Mr Trump has spoken about a 10 per cent punitive duty on Chinese imports because he says fentanyl is being sent from China to the U.S. via Mexico and Canada.

Fentanyl is a potent synthetic opioid drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use as an analgesic (pain relief) and anaesthetic.

It is approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin as an analgesic.

However, he did not immediately impose tariffs as promised during his election campaign.

Mr Trump has also threatened tariffs against the European Union, Mexico, and Canada.

“It went fine. It was a good, friendly conversation,” Mr Trump said of his call with Mr Xi in an interview with Fox News aired on Thursday evening.

“I can do that,” Mr Trump said in the interview when asked if he could make a deal with China over fair trade practices.

Mr Trump said he would rather not use tariffs against China but called tariffs “tremendous power.”

“But we have one big power over China, and that’s tariffs, and they don’t want them, and I’d rather not have to use them, but it’s a tremendous power over China,” Mr Trump added.

The U.S. and China are embroiled in diplomatic and economic disagreements, including an accelerating technological and military rivalry, bitter trade disputes, and Washington’s concerns with the ownership of the famous social media app TikTok, whose parent company is Chinese firm ByteDance.

(Reuters/NAN)