The Trump administration has been saying that the two countries are engaged in talks to resolve the dispute, but Beijing asserts that no such discussions are happening.

Wholly or partly foreign-owned companies in the country accounted for $980bn of China’s exports last year, or more than one-quarter, and $820bn of imports, or more than a third, data from China’s General Administration of Customs and calculations by the Financial Times showed. China registered a record trade surplus of nearly $1tn last year.