A red-hot economy, business-friendly policies and a Communist Party led by free-traders - this is the elevator pitch Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is delivering to global investors amid the trade war between the United States and China.

Three cargoes of U.S. crude are heading to China from the U.S. Gulf Coast, trade sources said on Monday, the first departures since late September and a 90-day pause in the two countries’ trade war that began last month.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has assured lawmakers that companies will be able to request exclusions on tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods under discussion with Beijing if talks do not yield a deal by the March 2 deadline.

U.S. officials used three days of trade talks in Beijing to demand more details on China’s pledge to make big purchases of American goods, as well as to push for ways to hold China to any commitments on changes to industrial policies.

Trump is setting himself up for a fight with congressional Republicans if he seeks to expand his unilateral tariff powers or proceed with threatened duties on imports of cars and auto parts.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States was having tremendous success in its trade negotiations with China, a day after U.S. and Chinese officials concluded three days of talks in Beijing.

The United States says talks in Beijing on ending a bruising trade war focused on Chinese promises to buy more American goods, but gave no indication of progress on resolving disputes over Beijing's technology ambitions and other thorny issues.

After US President Donald Trump withdrew from Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), involving 12 countries on the Pacific rim, on his first day in office, Japan, Australia and their closest allies proposed and promoted the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) to draw the US back into the region to counter China's fast-growing power and influence.

US and Chinese officials have met in Beijing for two-days of high-level talks aimed at resolving their ongoing trade dispute.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross predicted on Monday that Beijing and Washington could reach a trade deal that “we can live with” as dozens of officials from the world’s two largest economies resumed talks in a bid to end their trade dispute.