Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) – On 24 August 2020, telephone talks were held between the head of the US Treasury Steven Mnuchin, the US special envoy for trade negotiations Robert Lighthizer, and the vice premier of the PRC State Council Liu He.

The parties discussed: 1) interim results of the first phase of the trade deal between the United States and China; 2) measures taken by the PRC to: a) ensure greater protection of intellectual property rights; b) elimination of "forced transfer of technology"; c) removing barriers to American companies in financial services and agriculture; 3) an increase in China’s purchases of US products by 1.5 times.

The agreement on the first phase of the trade deal between the United States and China was signed on January 15, 2020 in Washington. China has pledged to increase purchases of American goods by about US$200 billion over two years.

According to information posted on the website of the US Chamber of Commerce, both sides see progress in the implementation of the agreement on the first phase of the trade deal. In this regard, they intend to continue to take the steps necessary to implement this agreement.

According to experts, the central agreement of the first phase of the trade deal was the PRC’s promise to significantly increase its annual imports from the United States. However, six months later, it became obvious that the volume of Chinese purchases did not quite reach the announced figures. For 6 months of this year China’s imports from the United States made up only US$33 billion.

Observers note that against the background of openly hostile relations between the two countries, Beijing’s failure to fulfill its obligations under this deal could result in a new tariff strike from Washington. However, the United States will most likely refrain from such actions due to the disadvantageousness of the aggravation of trade relations with China for the American economy, which has been so noticeably affected by the coronavirus epidemic. Bloomberg Economics estimate that by the end of 2020, the trade war with China will cost the US economy US$316 billion.

In general, experts emphasize that in the current difficult economic situation, the United States will try to further push the PRC to maximize the implementation of the first phase of the trade deal, or at least to increase purchases of American agricultural products as much as possible.