Washington
US President Donald Trump said that he met the team of US negotiators who had travelled last week to Beijing for a new round of trade negotiations with China.

“Trade negotiators have just returned from China where the meetings on trade were very productive,” Trump, who is currently at his private residence in Palm Beach, Florida, said in a series of tweets on Saturday night.

Trump assured on Friday that the talks with China went “extremely well” and that the team is working closely with China and Xi. “They are going extremely well… We’re a lot closer than we ever were in this country with having a real trade deal” with China, Trump said at the White House.

March 1 is the deadline for an agreement with China, and Trump has warned that if it does not happen, the US will raise the tariffs imposed on Chinese products valued at $200 billion from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.

The President said that it would be an “honour” to withdraw these tariffs if a deal with Beijing is reached. This was the third face-to-face meeting between representatives of both countries since Xi and Trump agreed a 90-day trade war truce on December 1, 2018.

Trump had agreed to provisionally suspend the increase of US tariffs on these Chinese products, but warned that he would go ahead with his plan if the agreement was not closed within the stipulated period.