Trump, Xi chew over trade war at high-stakes dinner

US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a high-stakes dinner Saturday to try to pull the world's top two economies from the brink of a full-fledged trade war.

There was no immediate statement from either side when the dinner of more than two hours ended in Buenos Aires. Trump left immediately to board Air Force One for Washington, having spent two days attending the summit of G20 countries.

But both leaders had expressed optimism earlier as they and top aides sat down at a long hotel table in the Argentinian capital.

"We will probably end up ending up getting something that will be good for China and the United States," Trump said, while Xi said they shared tremendous responsibility to find a solution.

"Only with cooperation between us can we serve the interest of both peace and prosperity," Xi said.

The meeting lasted longer than scheduled and featured a menu of sirloin steak, caramel rolled pancakes and Argentinian wine. It may have been tacked on to the end of two days of G20 diplomacy, but it was in many ways the main event of the weekend.

Trump has already imposed tariffs on more than USD250 billion in Chinese goods -- about half of the total imported into the United States each year -- in an attempt to pressure Beijing to change its trade rules.

Duties of 10 per cent currently on most of those goods are set to rise on January 1 to a whopping 25 per cent if a deal isn't reached. And that's not all.

As Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow said in Washington ahead of the dinner: "If things don't work out in this US-China summit meeting, he will invoke some 267 billion dollars in additional tariffs."