Dear President Xi Jinping,
I hope this letter finds your excellency well. It has been a while since you last talked about a trade war with the United States. If I am not mistaken, that was in your keynote speech at the Boao Forum on April 9. Describing China as a "defender of free trade," you carefully avoided sounding too provocative vis-a-vis U.S. President Donald Trump.
Although China is still one of the most-protectionist major economies, comments you made in response to Trump's "America First" offensives, such as "China's door of opening up will not be closed and will only open wider," alleviated the markets' pessimism over the future of international trade.