Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and his delegation have arrived in Washington to sign the phase one the agreement with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on January 15. The signing will mark a milestone in negotiations to resolve the long-running trade war. While the interim agreement delivers some relief, it only represents a new beginning for Beijing and Washington in addressing their profound differences on a wide range of issues, and tensions between the two biggest economies will likely persist, Chinese analysts said. All the deal did was to “just bring some certainty at this very stage,” He Weiwen, a former senior Chinese trade official, told the Global Times. “Its long-term effects remain to be seen.” What happens next “could be much more complex and difficult,” He said.

After signing the phase one deal, Chinese and U.S. officials face the immediate predicament over when to start phase two negotiations even as they try to execute the phase one deal. Some U.S. officials have suggested phase two talks will start immediately after phase one, but Chinese officials have maintained the second phase of consultations depend on the implementation of phase one.

After agreeing on the text of the phase one deal in mid-December, Chinese and U.S. officials have been putting the final touches on the agreement, including legal and translation reviews of the text as well as arrangements for the signing ceremony. Under the deal reached on December 13, the U.S. has committed to roll back tariffs on Chinese products in phases and China will increase purchases of U.S. products based on market demand. Chinese officials have said the final text will be released after being signed. The phase one deal could end the costly trade dispute and economic uncertainties in many parts of the world, said Wei Jianguo, Vice Chairman of the Beijing-based China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

Negotiations for the second phase of a pending trade deal with China will begin promptly but the outcome may wait until after this year’s presidential elections, U.S. President Donald Trump said. “We’ll start right away negotiating phase two. It will take a little time. I think I might want to wait to finish it until after the election because I think we can make a little bit better deal, maybe a lot better deal,” Trump told reporters. Observers have speculated in recent weeks there may be little appetite for phase two even though many of the tariffs put in place during the conflict remain in place, the South China Morning Post reports.

China and the U.S. together account for 40% of global GDP, nearly 40% of global manufacturing output and around 25% of the world’s total trade volume, according to the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation. Affected by the 22-month-long trade dispute, China’s trade with the U.S. has dropped 11.1% year-on-year from January to November 2019 to CNY3.4 trillion, while China’s exports to the U.S. declined 8.4% to CNY2.64 trillion. China’s imports from the U.S. fell by 19.5% to about CNY763 billion, according to the General Administration of Customs.

Meanwhile, China will fully open its oil and gas exploration and mining market to qualified foreign and private enterprises. Domestic companies and foreign ones registered in China with net assets of at least CNY300 million will be eligible to apply for oil and gas prospecting and mining permits. Previously, foreign companies could enter the industry only through joint ventures or other cooperative arrangements with Chinese companies. The new guideline takes effect on May 1. The aim is to bring more players into the sector to stimulate the vitality of the upstream market for oil and gas, which is currently dominated by large state-owned enterprises.

The Chinese delegation had planned to go to the U.S. in early January, but the South China Morning Post reported that it had postponed its trip by eight days to January 13 after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on New Year’s Eve that he would sign the deal on January 15 at the White House.

Although the text of the agreement has not been published yet, officials said they had been told that intellectual property safeguards in the phase one agreement appear relatively robust, including measures aimed at protecting trade secrets during the administrative licensing process. Another provision reportedly would bar Chinese companies from gaining approval for marketing or selling generic versions of pharmaceuticals still under patent abroad, an issue known as “patent linkage”. Executives said the agreement was hardly groundbreaking, but it does put a stop, at least for now, to months of imposing destructive tit-for-tat import taxes, the South China Morning Post reports.