China failed to buy agreed amounts of U.S. goods under ‘phase one’ trade deal, data shows

China has so far failed to meet its purchase commitments for U.S. goods under the “phase one” trade deal that it struck with the Trump administration. As part of the “phase one” trade deal, China agreed to buy at least $200 billion more in U.S. goods and services over two years — in 2020 and 2021 — on top of its purchases in 2017. The agreement, signed in January last year, paused a damaging tariff fight between the U.S. and China that started in 2018.

In its first year of implementation, China imported $100 billion of the U.S. goods agreed to in the deal — roughly 58% of the targeted $173.1 billion for 2020, according to Chinese customs data compiled by think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics. Even though they refer to the same thing, statistics on Chinese imports from the U.S. often don’t mirror that of U.S. exports to China, partly due to different data collection methods and standards in the two countries.

PIIE doesn’t track Chinese purchases of U.S. services agreed under the deal because the data is not reported on a monthly basis. Even before the pandemic, several experts had said it was not realistic for China to increase purchases of U.S. goods by that amount. The Covid-19 outbreak made meeting that obligation even more difficult as Chinese import demand plunged. In addition to goods and services purchases, the “phase one” deal also included broad provisions for China to strengthen intellectual property protection and open its markets to financial services firms.

China failed to buy agreed amounts of U.S. goods under ‘phase one’ trade deal, data shows, CNBC, Jan 22