Chinese top negotiator Liu He will travel to Washington on Monday to sign the “Phase One” trade deal with the United States, according to commerce ministry Thursday.
Liu, China’s top negotiator in the trade war, will be in the US capital from Monday to Wednesday, the ministry said, a week after President Donald Trump said the agreement would be signed on January 15.
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The deal is the first major agreement between the US and China to de-escalate the trade war and news of the deal’s finalization that helped boost US stocks through the end of 2019.
The deal also claims tensions between the two nations as US legislators pass human rights bills critiquing the Chinese government’s actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
In December, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that phase one economic and trade deal between China and the US does not only benefits the two economic giants but also the whole world.
Xi Jinping also spoke to his US counterpart Donald Trump over the phone and noted that the countries have reached the phase-one agreement on the basis of the principle of equality and mutual respect.
Earlier, China and the US were “moving closer to agreeing” on a “phase one” trade deal.
Initially, President Trump had said that he did not yet agree to roll back tariffs. He is expected to have the last word in the United States on terms of any “phase one” deal.
China had called for a rollback of existing tariffs, to which Trump has said he did not agree. American officials want large purchases of US farm exports.
In September, the US had imposed fresh tariffs on $112 billion worth of Chinese imported goods, marking a sharp escalation of the bruising trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
On November 27, Trump signed a bill in support of Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” agreement with China. The bill also allows the State Department to consider sanctions against officials involved in human rights abuses against Hong Kong protesters.
Donald Trump launched the trade war as part of his “America First” bid to lower a wide trade deficit with China, but the tariffs imposed thus far have barely made a dent in that gap.
