Top negotiators from China and the United States at trade talks in Beijing on March 29, 2019.
Nicolas Asfouri | AFP | Getty Images
The US and China have agreed to return to the negotiating table in the coming days to review the progress of their “phase one” trade agreement, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.
Both sides will hold the “discussion over the phone,” the ministry said. It comes after talks scheduled for last Saturday were postponed due to a scheduling conflict, according to Reuters.
Spokesmen for the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Department of Commerce were not immediately available for comment by CNBC.
The “Phase One” trade treaty, signed in January, put an end to a devastating trade war between the world’s two largest economies whose tariffs involved were smeared on billions of dollars worth of goods.
Among other things, the agreement promised China to buy at least two billion dollars more in US goods and services over two years on top of its purchases in 2017. But Beijing has fallen short so far, in part due to the coronavirus pandemic that Chinese demand hit.
In the first six months of this year, China’s purchases of the agreed products were less than a quarter of the amount targeted for the entire 2020 year, according to data compiled by think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The review of the trade deal comes as ties between the US and China have become less strong in recent months. Their agreements have shifted to trade in areas such as the origin of the coronavirus, concerns about national security around Chinese tech companies and the autonomy of Hong Kong.
– CNvel’s Evelyn Cheng and Lilian Wu have contributed to this report.
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