China has confirmed President Donald Trump was lying when he said his people at the White House received phone calls from China offering to reopen stalled negotiations to end his trade war.
Trump falsely claimed during the just ended G-7 summit in France that China in phone conversations expressed its desire to do a deal.
"China called last night our top trade people and said 'Let's get back to the table', so we'll be getting back to the table, and I think they want to do something," alleges Trump.
Trump's fib helped Wall Street stage a rally that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average gain 270 points at one instance. The startling comeback erased fears Monday might be a continuation of the bloodbath on Aug. 23 when a massive selloff due to China announcing new tariffs and Trump later retaliating sent stocks reeling.
"I have not heard of this situation regarding the two calls that the U.S. mentioned in the weekend," asserted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.
"Regretfully, the U.S. has further increased the tax rate on China's exports to the U.S. This extreme pressure is purely harmful to both sides and not constructive at all."
Geng also said China hopes the U.S. can "remain calm, return to rationality, stop wrong practices, and create conditions for the two sides to conduct consultations on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit."
China's Commerce Ministry, which normally releases statements on phone calls related to trade, made no mention of Trump's phone call claim.
Chinese vice-premier Liu He, China's chief trade talks negotiator, said China remains willing to resolve the trade war, but through "calm" negotiations. He also opposed Trump's escalation of the trade war in response to the tariffs China imposed on Friday.
Liu again pointed out nobody benefits from a trade war.
"We are willing to resolve the issue through consultations and cooperation in a calm attitude and resolutely oppose the escalation of the trade war," said Liu. "We believe that the escalation of the trade war is not beneficial for China, the United States, nor to the interests of the people of the world."
He also said the escalation of the trade war is bad for all parties and "the interest of the people in the world."
