China to pitch return to ‘Phase One’ Trump trade deal after warning US to ‘correct its wrongdoings’
China is preparing to offer the reinstatement of a trade deal it signed late in President Trump’s first term to stave off 10% across-the-board tariffs announced by the administration over the weekend.
The return of the 2020 Phase One agreement — which was never implemented due to Trump’s election loss that year to Joe Biden — will be Beijing’s opening gambit in what may be prolonged, delicate negotiations, .
The Phase One deal called for China to increase purchases of American goods and services by $200 billion over a two-year period — including $50 billion in additional orders for US agricultural products, $75 billion more in manufacturing goods and $50 billion more in energy supplies.
Trump’s first-term tariffs included duties of between 7.5% and 25% on Chinese goods comprising $362 billion of annual imports, or of the total.
Meanwhile, the Journal reported that China would also allow investors in TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to negotiate directly with interested would-be US buyers — though it’s unclear whether talks over the future of the popular app would include the social media platform’s sought-after algorithm.
Meanwhile, the Journal reported that China would also allow investors in TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, negotiate directly with interested would-be US buyers — though it’s unclear whether talks over the future of the popular app would include the social media platform’s sought-after algorithm
Trump, 78, announced Saturday that the US would implement 10% tariffs on China along with 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico — citing smuggling of the deadly synthetic opioid, which often kills unwitting users due to being falsely marketed as heroin or mixed into phony prescriptions and drugs like cocaine.
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“China is one of the world’s toughest countries on counternarcotics both in terms of policy and its implementation. Fentanyl is an issue for the U.S. [sic],” Beijing claimed in a statement posted online Sunday by the Chinese foreign ministry.
“The U.S. [sic] needs to view and solve its own fentanyl issue in an objective and rational way instead of threatening other countries with arbitrary tariff hikes,” the statement added.
“China calls on the U.S. [sic] to correct its wrongdoings, maintain the hard-won positive dynamics in the counternarcotics cooperation, and promote the steady, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. [sic] relationship.”
The statement cited a late 2019 agreement in which President Xi Jinping pledged to crack down on fentanyl exports at a meeting with then-President Joe Biden near San Francisco, after which US fentanyl deaths did dip from an all-time high of about 77,000 in 2022.
“In the spirit of humanity and goodwill, China has given support to the U.S.’s [sic] response to this issue. At the U.S.’s [sic] request, China announced back in 2019 the decision to officially schedule fentanyl-related substances as a class,” the statement said.
“We are the first country in the world to do so. China has conducted counternarcotics cooperation with the U.S. side in a broad-based way.”
The Chinese government said it “firmly deplores and opposes” Trump’s tariffs and that the “unilateral tariff hikes severely violate [World Trade Organization] rules.”
Republican members of Congress have accused China of deliberately exporting fentanyl to undermine the US �likening it to a modern-day Opium War, a reference to the 19th century conflicts associated with European countries importing the related drug into China, unleashing massive societal harm.
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Trump on Monday agreed to pause the implementation of tariffs on Mexico for one month after President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged to dispatch 10,000 troops to the border to combat drug smuggling and illegal immigration.
He has not yet announced a potential pause on Canadian or China tariffs.
In addition to fentanyl and illegal immigration, Trump has complained about trade deficits and described tariffs as a way of forcing manufacturers to open shop in the US.
Fentanyl produced largely in China and smuggled over US land borders and through the international shipping and mail systems has killed at least 281,000 Americans over the previous four years, data last updated in August.