The United States and China's agreement on a Phase One trade deal came as a relief to those affected by the ongoing trade dispute between the world's two largest economies, but international trade lawyers are less optimistic about the deal's enforcement and the next round of negotiation.

William Marshall, an international trade partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers-affliiated Tiang & Partners in Hong Kong, said in a LinkedIn post that the scale of the agreement is ambitious and "represents an important first step". But he added that finalising the text and implementing some of the deal's details will be difficult.

Nelson Dong, a Seattle partner with Dorsey & Whitney, agreed. He pointed out that China's obligations under the deal are bound by a new unspecified enforcement mechanism that would allow a "snap-back" of the punitive tariffs if China were to fail to live up to these new terms.

"As is inevitably the case in such major trade negotiations, the devil will be in the details," he said.

Dong added that many U.S. firms will be relieved that there has been a modest rollback of tariffs, but most companies "should avoid premature celebration until both sides have announced the deal and, even more critically, the deal terms can be seen and evaluated in more concrete form".

Under the deal, the U.S. has decided not to move forward with a new round of tariffs that had been scheduled for December 15 on a wide range of consumer goods, including laptops and toys. It also has cut in half the 15% tariffs on $120 billion of Chinese imports, but the 25% tariffs on $250 billion-worth of Chinese goods will remain. China, in turn, has agreed to buy U.S. agricultural products. According to a factsheet released by the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), China also will make a range of commitments in the areas of intellectual property, the opening up of financial markets and currency transparency.

But the Phase One deal also offers little evidence of tangible progress on the core U.S. concerns underlying the reason for the tariffs, which are lack of intellectual property protection and forced technology transfer, said Kirkland & Ellis Washington, D.C., partner Sanjay Mullick.

Dong noted that the struggles over tariffs and counter-tariffs are only a part, albeit a very important part, of the larger spectrum of tensions between the U.S. and China, given the Trump administration's overall strategic wariness about China.

"There are still many other areas of confrontation where the administration is likely to make life more difficult for the business communities in both countries," he added.

Mullick noted that thus far, the export ban on Huawei has not been lifted and there has been talk of making it more strict.

"Also, the administration is in the process of a rulemaking restricting access to the U.S. information and communications technology supply chain, understood to be principally targeted at China," he said.

Dong said all of these efforts should be viewed against the backdrop of a newly announced Department of Defense shift of focus from the Middle East to looking at Russia and China as the major strategic threats against U.S. interests in the foreseeable future, and potentially more direct encounters between U.S. and Chinese military forces in places such as the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits.

"Thus, viewed as a whole, the business outlook for U.S.-China trade and investment is probably bleaker at this point than a year ago, at least given the current administration's apparent approaches to these issues," he added.

Mullick also said the Phase Two negotiations, which will focus on technology issues, will be made more difficult by the 2020 U.S. election cycle.

For now, Dong recognised the timeliness of a "deal" between both countries.

"Both China and the U.S. want, and probably need, an 'off-ramp' to their lingering trade dispute that has dampened and even damaged the economies of both countries," he said. "It would be important for each of them to be seen making some tangible progress in these trade talks rather than adding more fuel to the economic fires that have burned for the past 18 months."