• Controversy: Trump breaks trade dialogue with China for his responsibility in the pandemic: "They should have stopped him"

Finally, after many months of tensions and confrontations with multiple open fronts, China and the United States have agreed on something: to go ahead with the implementation of the trade truce that both countries reached earlier this year.

Liu He, Chinese vice premier, former soldier and mastermind of the economic policy of the second world power, spoke by phone on Tuesday with the United States trade representative, Robert Lighthizer , and with Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin , to confirm that the pact between the countries goes ahead as planned.

"Both sides maintained a constructive dialogue regarding the intensification of the coordination of macroeconomic policies and the implementation of the phase one trade agreement," says a statement issued by the Asian giant's Ministry of Commerce. "The parties also discussed significant increases in purchases of US products by China, as well as future actions necessary to implement the agreement," the brief continues.

China and the United States reached phase one of the trade agreement on January 15. In Washington, in front of 200 guests, a signing was staged to seal the truce in a trade war in which the entire world has lost. On one side, the president of the United States, Donald Trump. On the other, representing Chinese leader Xi Jinping, was Liu He, chosen by Beijing to lead negotiations during the trade war and the relentless escalation of tariffs.

The agreement in the so-called phase one meant that the United States would reduce additional tariffs on Chinese products worth 120,000 million dollars. In return, China promised to purchase at least 200 billion worth of manufacturing goods, energy and services by the end of 2021. Also to buy agricultural products for 50 billion.

On the other hand, despite this first approach, US tariffs of 25% on Chinese imports valued at 250,000 million dollars would still be maintained - together with reduced taxes of 7.5% on additional imports that affect almost two thirds of what arrives in the United States-, which caused the price of certain items such as computers, mobile phones, televisions or baseball caps, bicycles and shoes made in the Asian nation to skyrocket.

"The parties addressed the steps China has taken to effect the structural changes required by the agreement that will ensure greater protection of intellectual property rights, remove impediments to US companies in the areas of financial services and agriculture, and remove the forced technology transfer, "said today's statement from the Chinese ministry.

According to Reuters, Beijing's purchases of US goods are far behind the pace needed to meet the first-year increase of the $ 77 billion specified in the deal. "China has bought about a quarter of what would be expected this year if it were to meet these targets by December 2021," says Mary Lovely, principal investigator at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Despite all the open crises with the Donald Trump administration, from Beijing they have always committed, at least publicly, to comply with the agreement, although in front they have had the continuous aggressive rhetoric of the US president that grows as the November presidential election. Trump himself said last week that "trade talks with China are canceled", raising many doubts as to whether the January agreement was still in force.

Today's call between the representatives of Beijing and Washington sheds some light, albeit on the commercial issue, to a new Cold War that is fired in several fields : either in the military field with the dispute in the South Sea of China; the politician for the new security law in Hong Kong with which Beijing intends to end the autonomy of the former colony; the fight for the viral narrative of the pandemic; or the dispute in cyberspace with the United States' veto of TikTok and the denunciation of the Chinese application against Trump for impeding its operations.

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