Tuesday 12 February 2019 5:14 pm | Updated: Monday 03 June 2019 1:15 am

President Trump to meet Xi ‘very soon’ as markets hope for end to US-China trade war, Conway says

President Donald Trump wants to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping soon in an effort to end the trade war that has raged between the US and China, according to an adviser.

Kellyanne Conway, previously Trump's campaign manager and now counsellor to the White House, told Fox earlier this week that Trump “wants to meet with President Xi very soon. This president wants a deal”.

“He wants it to be fair to Americans and American workers and American interests,” she added.

Conway's statement comes amid a 90-day trade war truce that is set to end in three weeks, before which the two countries must finalise a trade agreement.

President Trump said last week that he would not be meeting President Xi again before the truce deadline.

If no agreement is reached by 1 March then the US would more than double the rate of tariffs on $200bn (£155.6bn) of Chinese imports to 25 per cent, up from 10 per cent.

If Trump does impose a tariff hike, China is likely to retaliate with tariffs as it has done in the past, continuing the trade war between the world's two largest economies.

Stock markets in the US, China and Japan all rose on the news, with the Nasdaq up 1.06 per cent to 7,385 points, the Hang Seng up 0.22 per cent to 28,205 points, and the Nikkei 225 is up 2.61 per cent to 20,864 points.

Meanwhile the Eurostoxx 50 was up almost one per cent to 3,195.53 points.

David Madden, a market analyst for CMC Markets, said that “investors are optimistic” about the talks this week in China.

“Equity traders are viewing the arrival of the two influential negotiators as a boost for the talks," Madden said.

"Eurozone equity markets have managed to hang onto most of the gains that were made on the back of optimism over US-China trade talks," Madden added.

Connor Campbell, a financial analyst with spread betting firm Spreadex, shared a similar report.

"Celebrating the same US government shutdown-avoiding, trade war-ending hopes that glazed the European open in green, the Dow Jones jumped 230 points after the bell, sending the index back towards 25,300 and near(ish) its recent two-month peak," Campbell said.

Ahead of the March deadline, the Trump administration has sent US trade representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin to negotiate with President Xi's top economic adviser, Liu He, on Thursday and Friday.

Mid-level officials were sent on Monday to prime discussions for the two-day talks later in the week.

It is expected that talks between the officials will touch upon the Trump administration's key issues: intellectual property protection, forced technology transfer, cyber-theft of US commercial property, and an enforcement mechanism for the agreement.