Mubasher: US and Chinese top officials held phone talks this week, the second call since a late June meeting at which Washington and Beijing agreed to a ceasefire in their bitter trade conflict.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke to Chinese officials, spokesman for the trade representative said, as reported by Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, no details were disclosed regarding what was discussed by both sides.

Earlier in the week, Mnuchin said that if the discussions with Chinese officials yielded some progress, he and Lighthizer would head to Beijing for further talks.

After the bilateral talks the broke down last May, US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to a truce when they met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Japan late last month.

However, there remained still big differences between the two nations, which was implied in Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ view that negotiations would be a “long, involved process.”

President Trump threatened this week that he could levy more tariffs on Chinese products, while bemoaning again that Beijing was not making large purchases of US agricultural goods, which were allegedly promised by President Xi.

In addition, easing trade restrictions on Huawei remained another issue.

The US administration is being pressured from Congress not to make concessions on the Chinese tech behemoth.