Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday after his first meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that their talks were “positive and constructive” and could pave the way for a meeting between the two countries’ heads of state.
“The president wants to do it. The Chinese side wants to see it happen. President Xi said that publicly. So I think the odds are high,” Rubio said. “I don’t have a date for you, but I think it’s coming.”
Rubio said he and his counterpart, in their first meeting and the secretary’s first trip to Asia, did not focus on tariff tensions between the nations.
Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs on almost every foreign country are set to take effect on Aug. 1. He initially delayed “reciprocal tariffs” in April, vowing to strike roughly 90 trade deals in 90 days.
MORE: What to know about Trump’s shifting tariff deadline
Goods from China are already hit with a 30% tariff.
So far, the White House says it has reached trade agreements with only the United Kingdom and Vietnam, as well as a preliminary accord with China.
It was Rubio’s second high-stakes meeting with the top diplomat of a U.S. adversary after he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met for 40 minutes on the sideline of summit for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Malaysia.
Rubio emerged from that Thursday meeting calling it a “frank” conversation in which he relayed Trump’s “frustration” for Moscow’s inflexible approach to the negotiating table for peace in Ukraine.
On Friday, Rubio said he shuttled the Russians’ message back to Trump in a phone call Thursday night, but tempered expectations for progress.
MORE: Rubio meets with Russia’s Lavrov after Trump criticizes Putin
“I don’t want to oversell it, OK, but it was constructive, and there was some things that perhaps we can build on. [But] maybe not, I don’t know. We’ll find out, but there are some things that we will potentially explore,” he said.
The president has said this week that the U.S. will send weapons to Ukraine, expressing distrust in Russian president Vladimir Putin — and reversing course on a pause in specific munitions scheduled to head to Ukraine.
“You’ll be seeing things happen,” the president suggested Friday, in support of Ukraine.
