For months, President Donald Trump has suggested his personal relationship with China’s Xi Jinping will be what unlocks the world’s most consequential trade dispute. Yet he hasn’t been able to get Xi on the phone — until,

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to speak very soon, a senior White House official told CNBC. The discussion would follow a series of recent flare-ups between Washington and Beijing that threaten to derail a tentative trade agreement between the two economic superpowers.

Trump has long said that direct talks with Xi were the only way to resolve differences between the nations, but the Chinese leader has been reluctant to engage.