The American officials spoke to Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and Commerce Minister Zhong Shan on Tuesday, according to an emailed statement from a US government official who declined to be named in line with policy. Both sides will continue these talks as appropriate, the official said, without offering more details on the next steps.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow characterized the discussion as “constructive,” and said officials are planning more meetings but that no details have been confirmed. “Hopefully we can pick up where we left off but I don’t know that,” he told reporters Tuesday.

President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to a tentative pause in their almost year-long trade war after meeting at the Group-of-20 leaders’ summit in Japan on 29 June, and they directed their negotiators to find a path forward on a deal. The leaders didn’t outline a time-frame for negotiations or a deadline to finalize a trade deal.

Tentative Cease-fire

The talks broke down in May after the US accused China of reneging on draft commitments, while the two sides remain at odds over significant aspects of a deal.

Under the tentative cease-fire, Trump agreed to postpone new tariffs on about $300 billion of Chinese imports, though he left in place the existing 25% duty on about $260 billion of Chinese products. The US president also said he would allow US companies to resume supplying some of their products to Huawei Technologies Co., but added that the Chinese telecommunications-gear-making giant would remain on a Commerce Department trade blacklist over national security concerns.

Earlier Tuesday, Kudlow said at an event in Washington that the US government would ease restrictions on Huawei by relaxing the licensing requirements from Commerce. He added that Xi had agreed with Trump to scale up purchases of American products, including soybeans and wheat, along with possible energy as part of a “good-faith” move to show how open China is to resolving trade differences.