Vice President Mike Pence Wednesday signaled that the Trump administration has made little progress in trade talks with China, even after what the White House portrayed as a breakthrough late last year.

Pence painted a picture of a new lull in U.S.-China trade talks even after President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed Dec. 1 over local steaks in Argentina to call a truce in what had been a tense tariff war that threatened to slow the global economy.

Pence, speaking to the chiefs of America’s diplomatic missions around the globe at the State Department, gave no indication that additional progress has been made about a U.S.-China trade pact Trump and other senior White House officials have long said is needed to crack down what they — and U.S. allies — say are Beijing’s “unfair” trade practices.

[Pelosi asks Trump to delay State of The Union until government reopens]

U.S. officials “remain hopeful” that Chinese officials will seriously come to the bargaining table, the vice president said Wednesday.