And finally, there’s some progress! We say this because on Tuesday, White House Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow confirmed that US and Chinese officials held a constructive phone discussion. Kudlow’s statement marks an official resumption in trade talks between the two world leaders.

On the US team were Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and they spoke with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and Trade Minister Zhong Shan to take the negotiations on their trade issues forward. Kudlow also confirmed that both sides discussed the possibility of meeting in-person, and hoped that both sides could pick up from the point where the talks had broken down a couple of months ago.

US and China have been embroiled in a trade war for a year now, with both sides hiking tariffs on each other’s goods periodically. Negotiations had progressed but broke down sometime in May after China allegedly reneged on a few key issues. Tuesday’s talks were the first step after a truce on the trade war was announced by both Presidents at the G20 summit in June.