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Donald Trump spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping by telephone on Thursday, the state-owned Xinhua news agency said, amid simmering trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

The call came a day after Trump described his Chinese counterpart as “extremely hard to make a deal with” and in a week that both countries have accused each other of reneging on a trade truce signed in Geneva last month.

The two men were last known to have spoken to each other in January, before Trump’s second inauguration as president.

The deal reached between the US and China temporarily reduced their tit-for-tat tariffs, which had soared as high as 145 per cent, with Washington maintaining that it would also restart the flow of critical rare earths and related magnets to the US.

The US last week accused China of failing to live up to its promises to approve licences for exports of rare earths, leading to shortages that are threatening to shut down parts of US industry.

Beijing has accused the Washington of “seriously violating” of the Geneva agreement by issuing new warnings on using Huawei chips globally, halting sales of chip design software to Chinese companies and cancelling visas for Chinese students.

This is a developing story