The U.S and China have agreed upon a trade deal, after a month of negotiations between the two nations.
The two superpowers have agreed a ten-point trade agreement, which will see the Chinese market open to U.S creditors and credit card companies. Alongside this, China is set to lift previous bans on U.S beef imports as well as natural gas shipments.
In turn, the U.S is to allow cooked Chinese chicken meat and for Chinese banks to enter the U.S markets. The forged deal marks a promising shift in Chinese-American relations under the Trump administration.
Earlier this year, Trump appeared to threaten China after taking to Twitter to label the country a “currency manipulator”, and suggesting the imposition of further trade bans.
Trump’s provocative tweets ran the risk of weakening diplomatic ties with China, potentially jeopardizing decades of carefully calibrated US diplomatic efforts to normalise relations. However, progression in trade negotiation talks marks an encouraging development between the two nations under the Trump administration.
This follows increased tension in the south-pacific between North Korea and the U.S over nuclear weaponry. It had been suggested that President Trump’s latest softening of stance over China and the agreement of a trade deal, could be seen as a way to secure potential leverage over China with regards to asserting its influence in the region and escalating the situation with North Korea.
However, China’s vice-minister of finance, Zhu Guangyao, has dismissed the speculation, commenting:
“On the connection between the North Korean nuclear issue and our economic ‘100 days’ plan’ negotiations, I can tell you frankly that our economy team focused all their efforts on economic issues,” he said to journalists.
President Trump is also under extensive media scrutiny over his decision to fire FBI director James Comey, amid escalating investigation into the administrations connection with Russia. Despite mounting speculation, President Trump dismissed claims that he was being investigated over the matter, calling the probe a “charade” and labelling the former intelligence director both “a showboat” and “a grandstander”.