Mubasher: China and the US will hold talks in the upcoming days to evaluate the progress made in their Phase 1 trade deal, the Chinese Commerce Ministry recently announced.

The ministry's spokesman, Gao Feng, made this announcement during a weekly briefing held online; however, the spokesman did not give more details about the talks, according to Reuters.

This announcement came following the remarks of White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Tuesday, 19 August, that no high-level trade talks over the phase 1 deal, signed in January, have been scheduled.

The deal aims to end the trade war between the world's two largest economies that involved imposing large sums of tariffs on both sides.

Under the phase 1 deal, China should buy US goods and services of around $200 billion, more than 2017 levels.

However, China, which was hit by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, is far behind its target of a $77 billion rise in purchases for 2020.

It is noteworthy to mention that the talks were scheduled to be held on 15 August, but they were postponed due to the rising tensions between the two countries, including the US President Donald Trump’s threat to ban the Chinese video app TikTok.