Back in January, President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed on a trade deal between the two nations. However, as the pandemic has strained the relationship between the two countries and its leaders, Trump stated that he will not re-negotiate the first phase of the trade deal.
In an interview at Fox Business, Trump said that he will not undergo a renegotiation for the first phase of the United States’ trade deal with China. This comes even as China has failed to uphold its end of the deal to purchase more US exports. On the other side of the situation, the state newspaper Global Times reported that officials in Beijing are contemplating voiding or undergoing a renegotiation of the deal. The report continued to say that the officials were not pleased by the US’ criticism of China’s response to the pandemic.
Trump has constantly pinned the blame on China for failure to contain the virus when it first broke out in Wuhan back in December 2019. However, critics have pointed out that Trump was pinning the blame on China to distract the public from his own administration’s response as the US reaches over 86,000 deaths and over 1.4 million cases of the coronavirus. Nevertheless, Trump continues to claim that the virus originated from a lab in Wuhan but the claim has since been refuted.
During the interview, Trump has also accused China of trying to steal intellectual property to beat the United States in developing a vaccine for the coronavirus. “We can stop them, they’re going to try and do it,” said Trump.
With his constant criticism of China, Trump has revealed that the US could completely cut ties with China, suggesting the increasing tension between Washington DC and Beijing. Trump expressed how disappointed he is of China and said that he does not want to speak to President Xi at the moment. Since then, the administration is going over some proposals for sanctions against China.
However, to compltely cut ties with China would bring serious consequences to the US’ economy. The US economy is still reliant on its trade with China.