China’s ambassador to Washington has said the two countries were still working to implement their trade deal despite the recent strains in their relationship prompted by the Covid-19 outbreak. Cui Tiankai also called for China and the US to join hands in combating the pandemic and reject attempts to politicise the deadly outbreak. “As far as I know, we’re still doing our part of the deal,” Cui told the PBS show GZERO World in an interview filmed on April 3 and broadcast on Saturday.

Cui said China is still purchasing some agricultural products from the United States and removing some of the restrictions on foreign companies in its financial markets. He also said the two sides’ economic teams should assess the current economic situation and plan further steps.

“We are still doing all these things. But of course as you said, the global economic landscape has been drastically changed. So I just hope our two economic teams, if they can sit down together or just have a conference call, they can really make a good assessment of the changing realities and coordinate our response to that.” The Covid-19 outbreak, which started in China and has now spread across the world, has further strained the already tense relations between the world’s two largest economies.
It has also created uncertainty about whether they can reach the goals set in their phase one trade deal and scheduling further negotiations.