Donald Trump’s top economic adviser has said that China’s purchases of $200bn in US products under the “phase one” trade agreement could be delayed because of the coronavirus outbreak, even though he projected that the crisis would have “minimal impact” on the US economy. 

In an interview with Fox Business Network on Tuesday, Larry Kudlow, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said that the “world is not Wuhan province” — a reference to the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, where the outbreak originated — and the hit to US economic growth would be in the range of “two-tenths of 1 per cent” in the first quarter.

However, he conceded that the Chinese purchases of US goods and services from manufacturing to agriculture and energy, which were a core feature of the trade truce struck by Washington and Beijing last month, might proceed at a slower pace.