U.S. President Donald Trump has again threatened China saying the U.S. will "decouple" if its relationship doesn't go as expected. If China didn't "treat us right" the U.S. will have no choice but to cut all business ties.
Trump has temporarily suspended a previously planned review of the already signed phase-one trade deal reached in January. Trump, who is public about his anti-China position, said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that the U.S. wasn't obliged to do business with China.
Trump said he was willing to cut all business ties with China if it didn't adhere to previously agreed-upon commitments. Under the phase-one deal China committed to buying at least $200 billion worth of American goods between 2020 and 2021. China has not come close to achieving that target - and is unlikely to - partly as a result of the worldwide virus pandemic.
Trump's latest statement has escalated the already deep conflict between two of the world's largest economies - a conflict that has spilled over into the technology and finance sectors.
Last week, Trump said he had personally called off trade talks with China's trade negotiators, explaining he simply didn't want to talk with them "right now." The planned meeting, which was part of the phase-one trade deal, would have seen trade representatives from both countries discuss ways to bring a protracted trade dispute to an end.
Both China and the U.S. agreed to meet six months after the phase-one trade deal was implemented in February. The conditions were signed by both Trump and China's top economic adviser Liu He. Late last week China's commerce ministry claimed that the trade talks were merely postponed and would take place later. Trade officials from both sides haven't yet confirmed a new date.
In June, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin issued a similar threat and said a decoupling between the two could happen if China didn't play fair. Mnuchin said then the China market continued to be an unfair environment for U.S. companies.
