Valdai Club

The main levers of pressure in the Phase 2 talks will no longer be tariffs, but export-import control methods, investment restrictions, and possible sanctions against individual Chinese companies.

Even though no formal declarations were adopted at the end of the meeting, and no agreements were announced, the fact is that discussing them makes little sense while the sanctions are still there. However, it can be argued that apart from the denuclearization issue, economic cooperation was also on the agenda. It is worth noting that there were no formal statements on making the Korean Peninsula fully nuke-free, even though this may seem like an obvious topic. Perhaps there is not complete agreement on this issue either.