Containers are seen at the Yangshan Deep Water Port in Shanghai, China, August 6, 2019 (Photo: Reuters/Aly Song)

Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before leaving for a visit to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that the talks had moved more slowly than he would have liked, but China wanted a deal more than he did. Trump said there had been incorrect reporting about US willingness to lift tariffs, which he said had brought in tens of billions of dollars for the United States and soon “literally hundreds of billions of dollars.”

US and Chinese officials said on Thursday that China and the two countries agreed to roll back tariffs already in place on each others’ goods in a “phase one” trade deal to end a damaging trade war, but the idea has been met with stiff opposition within some quarters of the Trump administration.