China's President Xi Jinping likes to talk of "win-win" diplomacy and last week's official visit by U.S. President Donald Trump to Beijing would seem to fall into that category. Trump walked away with a very tweetable $250 billion in deals — covering everything from aircraft to soybeans — to brag about to his domestic supporters. Xi, like so many Chinese leaders before him, appears to have shipped off the barbarian chieftain with a few baubles to distract him from harassing the empire.
The reality, though, is that the Trump-Xi summit was a "lose-lose" proposition. By focusing on headline-friendly deals, the two leaders shunted aside the more difficult economic challenges facing the U.S.-China relationship — and set back the long-term interests of both their nations.
Sure, we shouldn't sniff at a quarter-trillion dollars — even if many deals, merely in the memorandum stage, may never materialize. Whatever develops will be a boon for U.S. businesses and farmers. And Xi benefits, too. By appeasing a White House obsessed with trade deficits, Xi could deflate, at least temporarily, mounting pressure in Washington to take action against unfair Chinese business practices.