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May 08, 2020 Chinese and U.S. trade representatives have agreed to "create favorable conditions" for the Phase One trade agreement, signed in January, despite recent tensions over the coronavirus pandemic. This was announced by the Beijing Ministry of Commerce, which said that Deputy Prime Minister Liu He, who had led the negotiations on behalf of China, phoned the US trade representative, Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the morning. "Both sides said they should strengthen macroeconomic and public health cooperation, endeavoring to create a favorable atmosphere and conditions for the implementation of the Phase One economic-trade agreement between China and the United States, promoting positive results" , reads the statement released by Beijing.

The two countries also agreed to maintain communication and coordination. The exchange comes after a harsh controversy between Washinton and Beijing over the spread of the coronavirus. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs against China after claiming that there was evidence linking COVID-19 to a maximum security laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus emerged for the first time late last year. China has denied these accusations. The clash at this point has become incandescent. Last Monday The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has threatened to end the Phase 1 agreement reached with China on trade last December, if Beijing does not fulfill its commitments. In January, Beijing agreed to import another $ 200 billion into U.S. products over two years, above the levels purchased in 2017, agreeing on a truce that stopped a trade war that had destabilized the global economy for nearly two years. However, many believe that China's ability to meet agreed volumes of purchases of goods and services - for an amount of two hundred billion dollars more than 2017 volumes over the next two years, including forty billion dollars of agricultural goods - decreased due to the coronavirus pandemic.