A few U.S. companies see Trump’s Phase 1 China trade deal as a tariff, according to a survey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Few U.S. companies doing business in China consider President Donald Trump’s Phase 1 trade treaty worth the cost of tariffs made in a two-year trade war, a new U.S. survey shows China Business Council on Tuesday.

The trade group said just 7% of respondents to their annual membership survey said the benefits of the Phase 1 agreement outweigh the cost of rates en route. Some 36% of respondents said the cost outweighed the benefits and 56% said it was too early to tell.

But the USCBC said that 88% of respondents hold a “positive” rather than some positive overall view of the trading deal. Half of the people who responded positively said this was because the deal “makes the bilateral relationship more stable and reduces the chances of further rate escalation.”

The Phase 1 trade agreement, activated on Feb. 15, calls on China to increase purchases of U.S. farm and manufactured products, energy and services by $ 200 billion over two years, along with increased U.S. access to China’s financial services markets , and some improvements in intellectual property protections. Promised negotiations on a Phase 2 agreement addressing the more pressing issues of technology transfer, industrial subsidies and data constraints have been scrapped.

China is far behind the pace of purchases needed to meet its $ 77 billion first-year purchasing target.

Despite this shortfall and a rapidly deteriorating US-China relationship amid problems from China’s security crackdown on Hong Kong to Trump’s threat to shut down Chinese-owned short video app TikTok, White House adviser Larry Kudlow said on Tuesday that the Phase 1 trade agreement is “fine immediately.”

Top US and Chinese officials will hold a video conference on Saturday to review the six-month implementation of the Phase 1 agreement.