China asks the U.S. to create conditions for the Phase 1 deal implementation

Assistant Minister of Commerce Ren Hongbin announced on Thursday that China would ask the United States to stop taking restrictive and discriminatory action against Chinese companies. Hongbin also said that the U.S. should create conditions for the Phase 1 trade deal implementation.

Senior U.S. and Chinese administrators were scheduled to review the Phase 1 deal on a video conference meeting this weekend.

“Under the current situation, it is required that the both sides need to work together and step up cooperation to overcome the difficult times,” Hongbin incited.

Hongbin said in a news conference that the coronavirus outbreak and U.S. export control measures had severely affected Chinese purchases of U.S. goods and services.

“Don’t forget that if you increase tariffs further from here, the impact on the U.S. economy is probably going to be worse than … how it might actually affect the Chinese economy because the Chinese economy, as you can see in the second quarter, has actually been recovering quite well,” UBS Global Wealth Management’s Regional Chief Investment Officer Kelvin Tay said.

Chinese imports from the U.S. fell by 3.5% from January to July this year.