The Chinese government says it will push forward trade negotiations with the United States in the next 90 days, expressing "confidence" that an agreement can be reached even as concerns remain over whether the two sides can resolve their deep differences.

The announcement today followed a period of relative quiet from Beijing after Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, reached a temporary truce in the trade war between the world's two largest economies over the weekend IN Group of 20 summit in Argentina.

The two leaders, who met on the sidelines of the G20 summit , also decided to hold off on new tariffs and give negotiators three months to strike an agreement.

In a brief statement, China's commerce ministry described the two sides' discussions as successful, adding it was confident of their agreement's implementation. China will start with the implementation of the specific matters in which consensus has been reached, the sooner the better, it added, without providing more details. But by Tuesday morning, Trump was renewing his tariff threats in a series of tweets,saying he and President Xi want the deal to happen, and it probably will, if not he is a "Tariff Man" who wants countries to pay for the privilege of coming  in to raid the great wealth of his nation.

Trump added that a 90-day timetable for negotiators to reach a deeper agreement had begun and that his aides would see "whether or not a REAL deal with China, is actually possible".

The threat of further escalation in the US-China trade war has loomed large over financial markets and the global economy for much of 2018, and investors initially greeted the ceasefire with relief. According to the White House, China has agreed to buy a "very substantial" amount of agricultural, energy, industrial and other products from the US to reduce a yawning trade gap, as well as to negotiate over Washington's assertions that Beijing steals American technology.

This year, the Trump administration instigated a trade war on Beijing, imposing tariffs on a total of $250bn of Chinese imports.