US-China Sign Phase One Trade Deal, Signaling a Temporary Truce

On January 15, 2020, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and U.S. President Donald Trump formally signed the agreement at the White House in Washington, D.C.

After more than two years of intense trade tensions, the U.S. and China officially concluded the Phase One Economic and Trade Agreement. Under the terms, China committed to substantially increase its purchases of U.S. goods and services—particularly agricultural, energy, and manufactured products—over a two-year period. In return, the U.S. agreed to roll back some tariffs on Chinese imports while maintaining most existing tariffs as leverage for future negotiations.

The agreement was widely seen as a temporary truce in the trade war. It provided immediate relief to global supply chains and business investment by reducing immediate uncertainty. However, core structural issues—such as industrial subsidies, technology transfer, and State-Owned Enterprise reform—were explicitly left for Phase Two talks, suggesting the long-term competitive nature of the U.S.-China economic relationship remains fundamentally unchanged. For the international community, while the deal provided a glimmer of optimism, its focus on "managed trade" and potential impact on free-market principles raised deeper questions about the future of the global trade order.