An end to the U.S.-China trade war may be imminent. Both governments are now optimistic that an agreement can be worked out, and U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping can close the deal at a "signing summit" in a few weeks. While the end to the trade war is to be welcomed, it is hard to be optimistic about the possible deal, if reporting of its contents is accurate.
There is little disagreement with the claim that China is an unfair trader, using the leverage of its mammoth domestic market to extract concessions such as technology transfer from companies that seek to do business there or tilting the market to favor homegrown competitors. The Trump administration has sought to level that playing field primarily though the use of tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States. Last year Trump imposed tariffs of 10 percent on some $200 billion in Chinese goods and threatened to increase them to 25 percent if the two governments could not reach a deal that rebalanced bilateral trade — China currently has a surplus with the U.S. that exceeds $400 billion — but suspended their application for 90 days after he had dinner with Xi last November.
That increase was scheduled to take place March 1 but Trump this week postponed that move to give negotiators more time to wrap up the talks. He tweeted that there had been "substantial progress in our trade talks with China on important structural issues including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, agriculture, services, currency, and many other issues." Noting that "we're getting very, very close," the U.S president said that he expected to host Xi for a signing summit at his Mar-a-Lago estate "fairly soon." China's Xinhua news agency appeared to agree, reporting that both countries are "closer to reaching a mutually beneficial and win-win agreement."