United States President Donald Trump has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping by phone as the two countries continue to clash over trade relations, which Trump has sought to aggressively reshape through a series of tariffs.

The Chinese state media outlet Xinhua reported that the phone call on Thursday took place at the request of the US, but it did not offer details regarding the content of the call. Trump had said the day before that reaching a deal with China was proving difficult.

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“I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!” Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social, on Wednesday.

China and the US reached a 90-day agreement on May 12 to bring down tariffs amid a trade war initiated by the Trump administration, but tensions have remained high since then.

Washington imposed significant tariffs on Beijing but eventually eased off amid concerns about the potential economic fallout of a sustained trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

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Critics have accused Trump of causing enormous disruptions in the global economy and then backing down when China or the European Union hit back forcefully.

The Trump administration has also launched a crackdown on Chinese international students living in the US, threatening to revoke student visas of those associated with the Chinese Communist Party or who pose vaguely defined threats to US national security. More than 277,000 Chinese students were enrolled in US universities during the 2023-2024 academic year.

China said such steps, along with others targeting China’s technology sector, violate the temporary trade truce reached with the US in May.

“These practices seriously violate the consensus,” the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing said in a recent statement.

While disputes between Washington and Beijing over issues such as trade and technology have been a common feature of their relations for decades, these tensions have ratcheted up as Trump sets out to change what he sees as a global imbalance of commercial exchange between the US and other countries, including China.