As the raging US-Chinese trade war remains unabated weeks after it was triggered, the Trump administration has taken the frontiers of the war further by restricting Chinese investment in US companies and start-ups across a broad spectrum of key sectors in the economy.

Analysts believe that the latest move could have deeper long-term consequences for the economic relationship between the two countries and remained one of the biggest changes to the US’s open investment regime in decades.

According to official information on the latest moves by the Trump administration’s to hurt Beijing further,  the restrictions, that President Trump had directed the US Treasury to draft and release this week, will be imposed on inbound Chinese investment.

The series of restrictions will complement the earlier tariffs on $50bn in Chinese goods aimed at forcing change in Beijing’s intellectual property practices.

Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, tweeted on Monday that the the restrictions would be drafted to have wider applicability beyond China, adding that “statement will be out not specific to China, but to all countries that are trying to steal our technology.”

While the details of the of the investment measures are being fine-tuned at the top level of among officials of the Trump administration in recent days, officials privy to the subject of the discussions, hinted that some of the restriction targets were to restrict China’s ability to invest in or acquire US companies in the industries identified by Beijing in its Made in China 2025 plan.

A senior White House Trade Adviser,  Peter Navarro, was quoted as saying last week that: “China has targeted America’s industries of the future, and President Trump understands better than anyone that if China successfully captures these emerging industries of the future, America will have no economic future, while its national security will be severely compromised.”

According to the Rhodium Group consultancy, Chinese foreign direct investment in the US dipped more than 90 per cent to just $1.8 billion in the first half of this year compared with the corresponding period of  last year. In 2016 alone, Chinese companies invested $46 billion in foreign direct investment in the US.

Meanwhile, with the Trump administration’s trade war against Beijing causing serious concerns globally, the European Union is reportedly working with China to ensure that multilateral trade doesn’t come to an abrupt end.

According to some analysts, European and Chinese officials are taking steps to strengthen their trade ties based on a multilateral approach.

The Vice President of the European Commission, Jyrki Katainen, was quoted as telling CNBC’s Eunice Yoon on Monday that he feels “really we are making progress… both China and the EU believes in multilateralism and a rules-based world order.”

According to him, both Brussels and Beijing launched negotiations for an investment agreement in 2013 and are now taking “the first step forward” in those talks.

Katainen said: “We decided that, in a couple of weeks’ time, the EU and China will exchange market access offers on (the) investment agreement.”

He hinted that the outcome of the negotiations would be presented at a summit in the coming weeks.