Initially, China and the United States were expected to sign the Phase One trade deal in the first week of 2020. On December 13, 2019, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that the U.S. and China would sign the agreement in the first week of January 2020, but on January 5, China hinted that on New Year`s Eve, President Trump unilaterally announced that the U.S. and China would sign the trade agreement on January 15, the Chinese government had decided: to postpone the visit of the Chinese trade delegation. led by Vice Premier Liu He, in the United States. Given that the Chinese government had covered up the outbreak (as of January 15, China announced only 41 cases of pneumonia due to new coronavirus infections in Wuhan), the U.S. did not know that the CCDC had been adopted on January 6 On January 1, a level 2 emergency response had been launched internally or that the emergency response had degenerated to level 1 – the highest level – about 10 hours before the signing of the trade agreement. The U.S. also doesn`t know that an “unpredictable and uncontrollable event” had already happened in China), the U.S. accepted the force majeure clause in the Sino-U.S. 2. Phase 1 of the trade agreement, without thinking too much about it.
U.S. officials said Friday they would work with China to reach a first deal in the coming weeks, hoping to sign a deal if Mr. Trump and President Xi Jinping were attending a summit of world leaders in Chile in mid-November. Even when Trump studied China`s role in spreading the virus, he and his top economic advisers made optimistic predictions for the U.S. economy and said the U.S. could quickly resume business as soon as the nation`s pandemic lockdowns were lifted. “China is complying with the Phase 1 agreement,” said He Weiwen, a prominent Chinese trade expert and former Official of the Ministry of Commerce. Trump had boasted of his administration`s efforts to cut off the United States. Trade deficit with China in the weeks following the signing of the agreement. But the coronavirus could put an end to those plans, the Commission`s report says, with the decline in Chinese students` enrollment in U.S. degree programs likely continuing to fuel US$15 billion in U.S.
service exports to China. The coronavirus stress for the trade deal comes when Trump this weekend began intensifying his attacks on China, amid reports that U.S. intelligence is considering the possibility that the novel coronavirus may have accidentally escaped from a Wuhan lab where the first cases were discovered. . . .