Trump Official Says US-China Trade Deal Is 'Over' Then Backtracks On Statements

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro hastily walked back his declaration the U.S. trade deal with China is over after President Donald Trump sent out a tweet completely discrediting his claim.

Appearing on Fox News on Monday morning, Navarro told host Martha MacCallum the trade deal signed January 15 has been terminated at Trump's behest.

"It's over," he said. Navarro's revelation also triggered a 400-point plunge in Tuesday's stock market futures.

Only it wasn't over. A few hours later, Trump tweeted: "The China Trade Deal is fully intact. Hopefully they will continue to live up to the terms of the Agreement!"

Navarro beat a hasty retreat and said his statement was misquoted, despite his saying these words in a live TV interview.

In a statement issued late Monday, Navarro said, "My comments have been taken wildly out of context. They had nothing at all to do with the Phase I trade deal, which continues in place. I was simply speaking to the lack of trust we now have of the Chinese Communist Party after they lied about the origins of the China virus and foisted a pandemic upon the world."

In the Fox interview, Navarro claimed Beijing may have intentionally withheld information about COVID-19 and allowed thousands of Chinese into the United States before travel restrictions came into effect on January 31. The first COVID-19 case in the U.S. was confirmed January 21. This was a person that had gone home to Washington state after visiting Wuhan, China.

Navarro linked his abrupt announcement of phase one's demise to Trump’s anger over China not sounding the alarm much earlier about the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said the turning point came after Trump learned about the coronavirus' fast-paced spread in the U.S. only after the Chinese delegation that signed the phase one deal had left Washington D.C.

“It was at a time when they had already sent hundreds of thousands of people to this country to spread that virus, and it was just minutes after wheels-up when that plane took off that we began to hear about this pandemic,” alleges Navarro.

Navarro compared China's actions during the pandemic to the Japanese government holding peace talks with the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in late 1941, which was weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Phase one or the "Economic and Trade Agreement between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China" took effect February 14. It focuses on intellectual property rights, technology transfer, food and agricultural products, financial services, exchange rate matters and transparency and expanding trade.