US President Donald Trump has clarified the status of the US-China trade deal, saying that it is “fully intact”, after White House trade advisor Peter Navarro said that the deal was “over” while speaking to Fox News on Monday night.
Navarro said that the “turning point” came when the US learned about the coronavirus only after the Chinese delegation had departed from Washington, following the signing of the deal on January 15. “They came here on January 15th to sign that trade deal, and that was a full two months after they knew the virus was out and about,” he said. When asked about the progress made on the trade deal, Navarro said: “It’s over, yes”.
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His comments sparked a wave of confusion over the Trump administration’s stance on China, and briefly caused global stock markets to dive, with Dow futures plunging nearly 400 points. Both Trump and Navarro immediately moved to damage control and sought to pacify concerns. Navarro asserted that his comments had been taken out of context and had nothing to do with the deal. “I was simply speaking to the lack of trust we now have of the Chinese Communist Party after they lied about the origins of the China virus and foisted a pandemic upon the world,” he added. Trump also tweeted later in the evening, confirming that the deal was still in place. “The China Trade Deal is fully intact. Hopefully they will continue to live up to the terms of the Agreement!” he said.
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Relations between the two nations continue to sour as they clash over a range of issues, including human rights, Hong Kong, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Navarro’s comments came on the same day that the US tightened rules on four more Chinese state media organizations, denouncing them as propaganda outlets. The State Department said that China Central Television, China News Service, The People’s Daily, and the Global Times will be classified as foreign missions rather than media outlets, requiring them to register all their employees and properties with the State Department. The US had designated five other Chinese outlets as foreign embassies in February.
In March, China’s Foreign Ministry announced that it is revoking the press credentials of American journalists from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, barring them from working in China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Further, Beijing has also declared five US media outlets–Voice of America, The Times, The Journal, The Post, and Time magazine as government functionaries.
Though Trump has made his displeasure with China’s behaviour widely known, this was his first strong defense of the trade deal in recent weeks. In an interview published by Axios on Sunday, Trump even said that he delayed imposing sanctions on China over its treatment of Uighur Muslims and other minorities because it would have interfered with trade negotiations. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump’s actions, saying that the President’s signing of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act last week now “rings extraordinarily hollow in light of his clearly stated lack of interest in standing up to Beijing”.
Image Source: CNN