President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing Thursday over the phone.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that China's President Xi Jinping was "extremely hard" to make a deal with. A senior White House official told CNBC earlier on Monday that Trump and Xi are likely to speak this week.

US President Donald Trump has imposed new tariffs on Chinese goods, citing Beijing’s failure to stop the export of chemicals used to produce fentanyl.

Trump said in his Truth Social post that the hour-and-a-half conversation phone call was “focused almost entirely on TRADE,” while the Chinese readout singled out Xi’s stern warning on Taiwan – the reddest of lines for Beijing – and the issue of Chinese student visas.

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Xinping held a phone call Thursday amid ongoing tensions between the two superpowers.

And his administration told nations in a letter this week that they have until June 4 to provide an update on the status of individual negotiations. The tariffs are expected to be a major topic of discussion during Trump's meeting on June 5 with Germany's new chancellor,

Alarm over China's stranglehold on critical minerals grew on Tuesday as global automakers joined their U.S. counterparts to complain that restrictions by China on exports of rare earth alloys, mixtures and magnets could cause production delays and outages without a quick solution.

Cushioning the markets from further drops seems to be the investor sentiment that Trump's tariff threats are not as dire as they first appear.