Donald Trump on Thursday summed up his feelings about a possible deal on trade with China’s Xi Jinping when they meet over dinner at this weekend’s G20 summit in Buenos Aires. "I think we are very close to doing something with China,“ the US president told reporters before leaving the White House for Argentina. “But I don't know that I want to do it,” he said.

There have been plenty of pivotal moments in Mr Trump’s presidency, from his Eiffel Tower meal with Emmanuel Macron, to his summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Helsinki to the historic tête-à-tête in Singapore with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator. Yet the meeting with Mr Xi on Saturday evening could eclipse them all, and Mr Trump can ill-afford any perception of failure.

The US leader has made the trade war with China a defining feature of his presidency by vowing to rebalance the economic relationship between the countries in a way that had escaped previous US administrations — laying the groundwork for a revival of American industry.