U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to terminate the phase one trade deal if China fails to fulfill its promise to buy USD200 billion more in American goods and services. During a virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Trump said China’s President Xi Jinping had only agreed to the deal because of the Washington-imposed tariffs which “at a minimum are the greatest negotiating tool that we have ever devised that we never use”. Many analysts have speculated that China’s ability to make the purchases has been significantly damaged by the coronavirus pandemic, which led to the country’s first economic contraction since 1976, after months of lockdown to contain its spread. “We’re going to have to see what’s going on with the purchases because of what happened,” said Trump. “They took advantage of our country. Now they have to buy and, if they don’t buy, we will terminate the deal. Very simple.”

The phase one deal ended threatened tariffs on around USD155 billion worth of Chinese imports that were set to take effect at the end of 2019, and halved tariffs to 7.5% on another USD120 billion in goods. But it kept in place the 25% import taxes on USD250 billion worth of Chinese products. In exchange, China pledged to buy, over two years, at least USD200 billion more in American goods and services than it did in 2017, including about USD40 billion in agricultural goods. China has insisted it would keep its side of the deal.

At the town hall meeting, President Trump also addressed the question about the origin of the coronavirus, which has so far infected more than 3.65 million people and killed more than 252,000 around the world. He stayed away from the allegation – which scientists have described as highly unlikely – that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab but suggested China had intentionally let the virus spread beyond its borders. “Personally I think China made a horrible mistake. They tried to cover it up. It’s really like they were trying to put out a fire. They couldn’t put out the fire,” Trump said. “What China really treated the world badly on was, they stopped people going into China, but they didn’t stop people going into the USA and all over the world,” he said. “You couldn’t fly out of Wuhan to go to Beijing and or to any place in China… you could fly out of Wuhan, where the primary problem was, to different parts of the world. What’s that all about?” This allegation is factually wrong. When the lockdown was imposed on January 23, all scheduled international passenger flights out off Wuhan were also halted. The airport remained accessible only for repatriation flights and chartered flights carrying medical personnel and supplies.

The U.S. Administration is now pursuing investigations about the origins of the coronavirus, focusing on the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that there was “enormous evidence” that the coronavirus pandemic originated in a laboratory in Wuhan. “I think the whole world can see now, remember, China has a history of infecting the world and running substandard laboratories,” he said on ABC’s This Week. He also asserted that the virus was man-made before a minute later agreeing to a report by U.S. intelligence services that it wasn’t man-made.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is formulating a raft of measures to hold China responsible for the pandemic’s damage that includes sanctions, cancelling U.S. debts and drawing up new trade policies. China has also become the central issue for both Donald Trump and the apparent Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, each trying to prove being more tough on China. Trump’s super PAC released a TV ad campaign in April painting Joe Biden as soft on China. The Biden campaign rebutted in videos, hitting Trump for eliminating U.S. pandemic preparedness resources and for praising China’s “efforts and transparency” in its virus response, the South China Morning Post reports. The controversy over the origin of the coronavirus and who would be required to pay damages could easily derail the phase one trade deal and prevent negotiations for a phase two agreement.