President Donald Trump said he was reluctant to continue ratcheting up tariffs on China because it could stall trade between the two countries, and insisted Beijing had repeatedly reached out in a bid to broker a deal.

Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, said officials he believed represented the Chinese leader Xi Jinping had sought to start talks. But he repeatedly sidestepped direct questions about whether he and Xi had been in direct contact.

"I have a very good relationship with President Xi, and I think it's going to continue. And I would say they have reached out a number of times," Trump said.

When pressed on whether Xi himself directly had contacted him or whether it was Chinese officials, Trump responded, "Well, the same. I view it very similar. It would be top levels of China."

"If you knew him," Trump continued, referring to Xi, "you would know that if they reached out, he knew exactly. He knew everything about it, he runs it very tight, very strong, very smart."

The US and China have escalated import duties in an economic clash between the two superpowers, part of a broader wave of sweeping tariffs Trump has sought to impose on major trading partners. He has hiked new levies to a combined 145% on Chinese goods, while Beijing has retaliated with duties of 125% on the US.

Trump on Thursday said he was reluctant to keep raising those duties — and suggested he might be open to lowering them.

"At a certain point I don't want them to go higher because at a certain point you make it where people don't buy. So I may not want to go higher, or I may not want to even go up to that level," Trump said. "I may want to go to less because, you know, you want people to buy."

Even with the dueling tariffs at stunningly high levels, the two countries have publicly appeared to dig in with the White House saying that China should reach out first and Beijing saying it was not clear about the US demands.

Still, Trump on Thursday expressed confidence about a deal that would include trade concessions and a deal for the sale of TikTok's US assets.

"Well, we have a deal for TikTok, but it'll be subject to China, so we'll just delay the deal till this thing works out," he said. "

Trump has previously said that China's objections to his new tariffs stalled a deal to sell off TikTok and keep the popular video sharing app operating in the US.

"I think it's a good deal for China," Trump said. "TikTok is good for China. And I think they'd like to see us do a deal, especially the deal that we have pretty much done with some of the best companies in the world."

Asked if he would take tariffs into consideration if China signed off on ByteDance Ltd. divesting the app's US operations, Trump said it would be something he could discuss with Beijing.

"It's a natural — if we're making a deal. I guess we'll spend five minutes to talk about TikTok. It wouldn't take very long," he said.

Source: Bloomberg