After two days of tense negotiations, the United States and China seem to have returned from the edge of a devastating economic conflict – perhaps.
Civil servants from the two countries reached A handshake agreement In the early hours of Wednesday in London to remove some of the harmful measures they had used to focus on each other’s economies as part of a collision that intensifies quickly in recent months.
It remains unclear whether the ceasefire will retain – or will crumble as someone was beaten in May. Even if the agreement turns out to be sustainable, the great performance seems to bring the countries back to a status quo just a few months ago, before Mr Trump provoked tensions with China at the beginning of April by increasing the rates on goods it produces.
“It seems that we are negotiating in Cirkels,” said Myron Brilliant, a senior counselor at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group and former executive vice-president of the American Chamber of Commerce.
“You escalate, you de-escalate,” he added. “We are not really further at the end of the day.”
As a result of this week’s negotiations, rates remain where they are. Further details are scarce, unlike the likely recovery of the aggressive policy that the two countries have adopted since May.
China is expected to inform limitations export of minerals That had threatened to paralyze a series of American manufacturers. In exchange, the United States will relax new limits that it has placed with its own export of technology and products, and to rise to threats to cancel Visa for Chinese students in the United States.
The countries did not announce progress in the field of other trade issues. Those things would be left for future discussions, American officials said.
For many analysts, the London meetings raised about what the aggressive trade tactics of Mr Trump against China had yielded against China in recent months, or that his actions had eventually failed.
“What exactly do we get that we never got before?” said Veronique de Rugy, A senior researcher at the Mercatus Center, a libertarian think tank. “This deal suggests that there was never a real plan.”
Trump administration officials argued that the United States came to the top of the recent escalations and said that the punitive measures they have issued in response to China’s Curbs on Rare Earth Export show that the country has a lot of its own firepower. In recent weeks, the United States limited access to a series of software, products, chemicals and technologies, including critical elements that China uses to develop advanced chips and jet engines.
The administration has also pointed to the power of the American economy and Limited inflation To claim that even very high rates for Chinese import have had few negative effects.
Other predictors have not been so optimistic. In a report this week, the Said World Bank That American rates would be the scene for the weakest decade of global growth since the 1960s.
Mr. Trump stated on Wednesday morning on social media that “our deal with China is ready” and that the “relationship is excellent”, although he acknowledged that the agreement was still subject to definitive approval by himself and his counterpart, Xi Jinping.
“Full magnets, and all the necessary rare earths, will be supplied in the front by China,” he wrote in all capital letters. “Likewise, we will provide China what has been agreed, including Chinese students who use our colleges and universities (which has always been good with me!).”
The discussions in London took place over two long days and nights and were repeatedly heated, according to two people with knowledge of the meetings. At different times the conversations seemed as if they were falling apart, they added – a sign of the lack of trust between the two governments.
Howard Lutnick, the Minister of Trade, who participated in the negotiations, said that the fundamental goal of the president was to “reduce the trade deficit and increase trade”.
“But first we had to come out, kind of negativity,” he said, the conversations concluded. “Now we can continue to try to try positive trade, growing trade and to do beneficial for both China and the United States.”
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said on Wednesday that the essence of relationships between the two countries is in mutual benefit and cooperation. “There are no winners in trade wars,” he added. “China is not looking for conflicts, but will not be intimidated by one.”
Analysts and experts argued that the events of the past few weeks showed that the Trump government overpassed his hand against China. The United States have an almost immediate, economic need for the rare earth minerals and magnets that China produces. Chinese limitations on these exports forced car manufacturers and other industries to lobby the White House for exemption, and eventually threatened to export in stocks of American military hardware.
The restrictions that the United States would put on China in exchange would undoubtedly also be painful for the Chinese economy. But some analysts emphasized that they would also cause pain in the United States.
Philip Luck, a director of the economy program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, wrote in A recent analysis That American restrictions on ethane export that was intended for China, in particular failed. For example, it forced large American energy companies to put billions of dollars in planned export. With ethane cut, Chinese plants can easily burn other fuels that they can obtain elsewhere – which would prevent more costs but prevent interruptions.
“These operating elements cannot even free the lowest bar for an economic weapon,” wrote Mr. Luck. “In addition to hurting American producers more than their Chinese counterparts, they undermine their own energy dominance agenda of the administration and signal to allies that the United States cannot even be trusted, even in so -called apolitical raw material markets.”
Iharia Mazzocco, a senior fellow at Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that tariff threats and other policy were led by a theory in Washington that “China would click under pressure very quickly”, partly because the export -driven economy has shown signs of weakness.
“I think what China proved is that it is actually in a fairly strong position and that it can bear a lot of pain, and perhaps more pain than the United States,” she added. She also said that China had also demonstrated the ability to use export controls to set up the United States in a way that it had never offered before.
Jin Canrong, a professor in international studies at Renmin University in Beijing, wrote in A commentary Last week those rare earths were ‘an asset in the hand of China’.
“Trump must understand that pressure and threats are absolutely not the right way to deal with China,” he wrote.
Some analysts have also questioned the precedent that the Trump administration has been established by setting the US export checks, which are usually considered a matter of national security, rather than economic leverage.
Wendy Cutler, the vice -president of the Asia Society and a former American trade negotiator, said that the United States “seem to have paid a tough price” to regain access to Chinese critical minerals and magnets.
“These matters have been deliberately withheld from the negotiating table for years, given that we insist that national security -related measures are not suitable for a giving and taking,” she said. “By apparently turning this long position now, the US has opened the door for China that will be difficult to close.”
She added that China might now be urged on two -way concessions about export controls in the future. “The London framework can mean an important turning point in economic relationships between the US and China,” she said.
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