Coronavirus: can China and the US uphold the phase one trade deal amid Covid-19?
- China agreed to buy US$200 billion worth of US products and services over the next two years before the scale of the coronavirus outbreak became clear
- US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he would terminate the deal if China does not buy the amount of American products it has promised
The economic damage being caused by the coronavirus, and the war of words over who is to blame for the pandemic, are rapidly increasing the doubts over whether the United States and China can uphold the terms of their phase one trade deal.
For Beijing, the deal has been an unpleasant burden from day one. China engaged in back and forth negotiations with the US for nearly two years to avoid an all-out trade war, but it was never Beijing’s wish to subject its foreign purchases or domestic policies to US influence.
And even before the coronavirus outbreak grabbed the headlines, China had kept a low profile on its deal with the US. Few Chinese officials, including Vice-Premier and chief trade negotiator Liu He, discussed the deal’s implementation in public. It is only in an interview given by Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador in Washington, at the start of April that Beijing expressed it was still committed to the deal.
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