I thought that this bilateral summit between China and the United States, even if there was no result, would have a framework agreement, so that Trump could go back and make a good job. As a result, Trump didn't make any movement on social media, and he seemed to be a different person.
This indicates that Trump has eaten the junkie, and it can even be said that to reach an existing agreement, Trump has made some concessions, but neither side has made a clear statement.
It can be analyzed from a few details.
The meeting was significantly shortened, with no press conference and no joint statement.
Before the meeting, Trump said in advance that the meeting would discuss many things, including tariffs, fentanyl, rare earths, 301 investigation and many other issues, which were expected to take a long time. Trump said it would take 3 to 4 Hours to talk about these issues.
As a result, the meeting only lasted for one hour and 40 minutes, and the meeting time was directly reduced by half.
To explain, there are only two circumstances, one is that the meeting just reviewed the content of the fifth round of trade negotiations, and then the two sides confirmed that an agreement was reached, so the content of the negotiations passed too quickly.
However, after the meeting, the two sides did not sign an agreement, and the two sides did not mention the agreement after the meeting, so this reason could not stand.
Second, many things were not agreed at all and were directly shelved. Judging from the results after the meeting, the public consensus basically focuses on secondary issues of the trade war, such as tariff disputes caused by soybeans and fentanyl, and service fees for merchant ships to dock. There are no specific solutions to many issues such as rare earths, tariffs, chips, and Taiwan. Although the control of rare earths has been put on hold for one year, it is only extended rather than ended, and there is a high probability that it will continue to be implemented next year.
Compared to the latter, the importance of the former is not so high. after the reunion, there was no agreement signed, no joint statement, nor a press conference, which in turn shows that China and the United States did not make any concessions on some core issues.
That is why the two sides reached a consensus on the secondary issue, more like a relief relationship.
Since the U.S. implemented the “50%” penetration rule and Maritime 301, China has taken immediate countermeasures, tightened export controls on rare earth, and charged port service fees to U.S. merchant ships.
As soon as these two counter-measures came to the ground, Sino-US relations had already moved towards a substantial collision. Trump took these sanctions as a means, not as a result, but he didn't expect China to dare to confront it head-on, and it would definitely have to compromise in the end.
The meeting would provide space for both sides to cancel some unnecessary measures.
Consensus is consensus, but it does not mean that there will be no winner or winner in this meeting.
Trump lost completely
From a macro perspective, the most surprising of the Sino-U.S. trade talks was not the easing of China's rare-earth export controls for a year, but Trump's reduction in tariffs of 10%, far above external expectations.
China's position before the meeting was very clear, demanding that the United States lower the overall tariffs to the level before April of this year, and then conduct trade talks with the United States.
In April, Trump imposed two 10% tariffs on Chinese goods on fentanyl. The first time was on February 1st, and the second time was on March 2nd. In other words, while the two sides lifted the sanctions against each other, Trump actively lowered the level of US tariffs on China to the level of February.
Tariffs are the sharpest weapon in Trump's hands. Trump will never take the initiative to reduce tariffs unless he has to. The only precedent is that Trump made a mistake about Brazil's tariffs on the United States, and then took the initiative to reduce tariffs on Brazil.
Sudden concessions on tariffs can only show that Trump lost completely. Whenever Trump has a little card in his hand, it is impossible to reduce the tariff by 10%.
In addition, the one-year extension is also a matter of concern. According to the previous Sino-U.S. trade negotiation rules, the Sino-U.S. ceasefire is three months, this direct extension is one year.This shows that Trump wants to recover political resources on the Sino-U.S. trade issue and move in other directions.
The reasons are not complicated, mainly the internal inflation problem in the United States and next year's mid-term elections.
On the same day, the Fed announced a 25 basis point interest rate reduction, and if U.S. tariffs on China continue to be high, U.S. inflation could explode.More importantly, the U.S. will hold mid-term elections next year, and if U.S. trade issues are handled poorly, especially U.S. “red neck” soybeans can’t sell out, is really going to react to Republican ballots.
Therefore, Trump's compromise is not only due to China's reciprocal counterattack, but also due to some domestic reasons in the United States.
It's just halftime
Trump's initiative to compromise can only be regarded as halftime, and Trump is bound to make a comeback, because regardless of the deterioration of Sino-US diplomatic relations and economic and trade relations, it is essentially a derivative of the structural contradiction between China and the United States.
The biggest contradiction between China and the United States is the contradiction between a defending country and a rising country. To put it bluntly, China's development rate far exceeds U.S. expectations, posing a challenge to the U.S. hegemony. As a vested interest in the global order, the United States will inevitably find every means to contain challenging countries.
According to Thucyred's trap theory, this will inevitably transfer the power of speech and distribution through war. But both China and the United States are trying their best to avoid a hot war.
On the basis of this basic consensus, China seeks to struggle to win the world first in all fields, at the lowest cost to overtake its members, while the United States, on the other hand, wants to do everything possible to complete the repression of the challenging country through a bloodless war and continue to maintain its interests.
So, no matter how the Sino-U.S. trade negotiations go, the ultimate contradiction between the Sino-U.S. cannot be solved.The important thing is that as long as China is not the next Soviet Union, the U.S. position to suppress China will not change, Biden is so, Trump is so, the future U.S. president remains so, only the way has changed.