Coronavirus row won’t kill US-China trade deal, even as tensions rise, one of phase one’s top US negotiators says

Kelly Ann Shaw, until recently Larry Kudlow’s deputy at the National Economic Council, said phase one tensions are yet to reach a tipping point

Comments come as pressure piles on the nascent accord from both sides, amid speculation that US President Donald Trump will walk away

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Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He and US President Donald Trump signed the phase one trade deal at the White House in January. Photo: DPA

Published: 7:00pm, 15 May 2020Updated: 9:13am, 19 May 2020

While US-China tensions “are at a higher point” than ever before, one of the architects of the phase one trade deal does not believe the beleaguered accord is on the verge of collapse.

Pressure continues to mount on the deal, which only entered force in February having been signed a month earlier, with attacks on its content, feasibility and desirability raining in from both Beijing and Washington with increasing regularity.

And while the superpower relationship has soured dramatically since Kelly Ann Shaw left her role as deputy director of the White House National Economic Council under Larry Kudlow in November, she is still optimistic that the deal will hold, having been one of the lead negotiators of the agreement.

“I certainly do not think the deal is bulletproof, there could be a tipping point at which the broader tensions are just too high and it may be victim to that, but I certainly do not think we’ve reached that point yet,” Shaw said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.

“China is continuing to make purchases. They have made some reforms pursuant to the agreement. And I understand at a working level, officials from the United States and China are in close touch and continuing to work through those issues. So while the rhetoric on both sides is tinder, nobody has lit a match yet.”