US President Donald Trump asserted in an interview published Friday (Apr 25) that tariff negotiations were underway with China, but Beijing denied any talks were taking place, the latest in a series of conflicting signals over what progress was being made to de-escalate a trade war threatening to sap global growth. Trump told TIME magazine that talks were taking place and that Chinese President Xi Jinping had called him, an assertion he repeated to reporters as he was leaving the White House on Friday morning for Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Francis. "China and the US are NOT having any consultation or negotiation on #tariffs," China shot back in a foreign ministry statement posted by the Chinese Embassy in the US "The U.S. should stop creating confusion." The back-and-forth added to the substantial uncertainty surrounding the state of play over Trump's erratic tariff policy, not just around China, but also as it pertains to the dozens of countries scrambling to strike their own deals to ease the burden of the hefty import taxes he has unleashed since returning to the White House in January.His team of negotiators was conducting what amounted to a lightning round of trade talks with foreign officials who had swarmed Washington this week for the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group. But while Trump officials including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent touted indications of swift progress, many of their counterparts were more circumspect, and finance chiefs at the IMF were heading home with renewed urgency to diminish the risks presented by the tariffs. "I'm walking away from these meetings with a clear sense of everything that is at stake and the risks that are there for jobs, for growth, for living standards all over the world," Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe told Reuters. "The meetings here ... reminded me of why we need to leave no stone unturned in the next few weeks and months to see how we can reduce that uncertainty."