Washington: US President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to visit Beijing, as he declared a trade deal with China was in good shape after a phone call with President Xi Jinping – their first since Trump returned to power in January.

The long-awaited call between the two leaders included a renewed joint commitment to reaching a deal, a promising sign after a fragile truce struck in Geneva last month appeared on the verge of collapsing after both countries accused each other of not honouring their terms.

However, there was some divergence in their respective accounts of the call, which, according to Trump, lasted 1½ hours and focused almost entirely on trade issues without addressing the war in Ukraine or concerns about Iran’s nuclear technology.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Osaka in 2019.Credit: AP

Trump implied there had been a breakthrough in discussions on China’s export controls on rare-earth magnets critical to the automotive, defence and energy industries, which had threatened to derail the truce – something the Chinese side did not mention in its........

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