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WASHINGTON, Dec. 14-- U.S. experts and businesspeople hailed the China-U.S. phase-one economic and trade agreement on Friday as a move to de-escalate trade tensions, benefit their respective and global economies, and lay a favorable groundwork for future negotiations. Welcoming the trade deal, Matthew Margulies, vice president of China operations for the U.S.-China Business Council, said, "we need more U.S.-China trade, not less. We need more U.S.-China investment, not less, and we need more engagement with our Chinese counterparts." Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said, "this phase-one China deal should go a long way in reversing the downward spiral in bilateral trade relations and increasing certainty for U.S. businesses." "America's trading partners around the world who were feeling the pain of this trade war must also be breathing a sigh of relief," added Cutler, a veteran trade negotiator who once served as acting deputy U.S. trade representative. Describing the agreement as "measured and balanced, carefully negotiated to achieve some specific objectives now and to prepare the way for continuing agreement in the future," Robert Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, said, "it has been a long and circuitous road to phase-one, but it is good for both sides, and for the world, that we have arrived." Stephen Gallagher, chief U.S. economist at the French multinational investment bank Societe Generale, said, "we see the phase-one agreement as modest, but for now, it ends the escalation pattern." | 
