China announced in August that it would impose tariffs in two batches in September and in December, however, the second round due to come into effect on Dec. 15, was not implemented.

“China hopes both sides can follow what have been agreed in the deal and make efforts to implement relevant parts of the deal to boost market confidence, to promote bilateral relations, and to help world economic growth,” the statement said.

The Chinese government said that the planned reduction of tariffs on U.S. products was in response to a decision by the U.S. to halve 15 percent an additional tariff on U.S.$120 billion of Chinese goods to 7.5 percent from Feb.14.

The announcement came amid increasing concerns over whether China can still honor the terms of the phase one trade deal signed on Jan. 15, including a commitment to buy an additional U.S.$200 billion worth of American services and goods over the next two years.

“China is concentrating on battling coronavirus. The U.S. government should be flexible on China-U.S. phase one trade deal as a way to show goodwill to Chinese people working hard to contain the epidemic. I believe doing so will not harm President Trump’s image among American public,” Hu Xijin, editor in chief at the state-run tabloid Global Times, said on Twitter.

The move suggests that China is committed to the tariff reduction element of the deal signed in January by U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s Vice-Premier, Liu He.

In particular, China said on Thursday that it remained committed to the eventual goal of removing all additional tariffs imposed on each other since the tariff war started in early 2018.

Thursday’s announcement does not mean that China will remove all additional trade war tariffs on these sets of goods, only the additional duties imposed on the U.S.$75 billion on Aug. 23 last year — a day when Trump took to Twitter to call Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping an “enemy."

That day, China announced that it would impose additional tariffs, varying between 5 percent and 10 percent, on U.S.$75 billion in U.S. goods in two tranches. A first tranche composed of 1,717 product lines, the second had 3,361.

China later allowed importers to apply for exclusions from the additional tariffs on the products, which included automotive goods, agricultural goods including pork, chicken, beef and soybeans, chemicals, crude oil, whiskey and seafood.

Ahead of Thursday’s announcement, trade watchers had been braced for China to delay some of the phase one commitments as it attempts to deal with the rampant spread of the coronavirus, which has placed large swathes of the economy on lockdown.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said on Wednesday that the U.S. should be tolerant if the coronavirus outbreak affected China’s ability to make massive purchases.

“If they’re really trying and it really just blows the economy out of the water, then we would have to be understanding of that,” Perdue told reporters at a cattle convention in Texas.

The deal states that the U.S. and China will “consult” each other if there is a “natural disaster” or other emergency that could affect commitments. This might give China some flexibility in reaching its import targets, said Darci Vetter, chief agricultural negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative under president Barack Obama.

“It might affect trade levels but it should not be an additional source of trade tensions, as long as both countries are sharing information about the measures and why they’re being taken — and public health is the priority,” she said.

However, Scott Kennedy, a China analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said that caustic statements from China’s foreign ministry regarding the U.S.’ decision to restrict air traffic from China “is doing nothing to help contain the outbreak” and is unlikely to tempt the U.S. to be flexible on the deal’s enforcement.

“There are some market opening steps, and channels specifically for American companies, which are the most significant parts for financial services. Changes related to those things should be able to be implemented regardless of what's happening. I don't see any need for slow down on that,” Kennedy said.

Chinese buyers have yet to make large scale purchases of U.S. farm goods in 2020, partly due to the Lunar New Year holiday, which fell early this year, and also due to the shutdown due to the coronavirus.

Indeed, market sources told AgriCensus that Chinese soybean crushers had bought “at least 1 million metric tonnes of soybeans from Brazil," since the end of the extended holiday period.

Strong competition from cheaper soybeans from Brazil — which is set to report a record harvest for the season, had led many to be skeptical of China’s demand for U.S. agricultural goods even before the coronavirus.

“What U.S. agricultural producers wanted was to go from the private sector in the U.S. to the private sector in China, and to build those relationships,” said former trade negotiator Vetter. “If China decides to meet that by directing state-owned enterprises to make high volume purchases, we do not get that relationship with our true customer.

“The other concern I have is that the strong focus on the volume or the [U.S.] dollar value will mean that China might be willing to make large purchases, but hold them in stocks.”

In the almost two years since this trade war began, there have been “innumerable farmers who have gone out of business”, said another former USTR negotiator, Nicole Bivens-Collinson, a trade lawyer at Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg.

“They might not want to put all their eggs in the China basket again,” she added.