Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon calls past 50 years of China trade policy 'a mistake' as Trump and Xi Jinping hold crucial talks amid escalating tariff tensions.

President Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping have begun what is expected to be three to four hours of high-stakes ,in-person talks in hopes of lowering the temperature of a simmering trade war that has threatened to boil over and upend the global economy.

Xi told Trump that Beijing had been helping the two Southeast Asian neighbours to settle their border dispute "in our own way", South China Morning Post reported.

By withholding soybean purchases and rare-earth exports, China extracted relief from U.S. tariffs and delayed export controls, without conceding much in return.

Chinese President Xi Jinping offered these words to President Trump before their private meeting on Thursday in South Korea: PRESIDENT XI JINPING (through translator): President Trump, it is a great pleasure for me as well to meet you.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday took steps to de-escalate their trade war, swapping some U.S. tariff reductions and tighter export controls for a pause in Beijing's new restrictions on rare earth minerals and magnets and a resumption of its purchases of American soybeans.