WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden said that he expects to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping “within the next 10 days,” which would be the first one-on-one call between the two leaders since March.
“I think I’ll be talking to President Xi within the next 10 days,” Biden told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, after returning from a trip to Massachusetts, the Hill reported Thursday.
Biden said last month that he expected to speak with his Chinese counterpart “soon” but offered a more specific timeline on Wednesday.
The admission could signal that a decision on whether to lift some Trump-era tariffs on China is imminent, though Biden didn’t give a straight answer to a follow-up question on what he would tell Xi about tariffs.
Biden has considered lifting tariffs on Chinese goods as a way to ease inflation, though the idea has received pushback from labor unions.
