"President Donald Trump emerged from his highly anticipated meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping today with most of what he wanted from a deal with Beijing. Yet the agreement does little more than extricate Trump from crises of his own making. The pattern in Trump's dealings with China raises a long-term concern: that he will one day wind up sacrificing American interests in the pursuit of deals of questionable strategic importance."
"Today's agreement, struck on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, averts another escalation of tensions between the world's two great powers. China agreed to postpone expanding export controls on rare-earth metals for one year. Those controls, announced earlier this month, threatened to choke off the flow of rare earths into industries vital to American security, including semiconductors and weapons systems."
"According to Trump, China also met two of his other key demands: It agreed to resume purchases of U.S. soybeans, which it halted in the spring, and pledged to crack down further on the illegal fentanyl trade. In return, Trump will cut in half, to 10 percent, the tariffs he imposed on China earlier this year to pressure Xi to take firmer action on fentanyl."
President Donald Trump secured most of his demands after meeting Xi Jinping, obtaining China’s agreement to delay expanding rare-earth export controls for one year and to resume U.S. soybean purchases, while China pledged to intensify efforts against illegal fentanyl. The United States agreed to pause a new export-control rule and to forgo an additional 100 percent tariff, and Trump reduced existing tariffs to 10 percent to encourage further Chinese action on fentanyl. The measures avert an immediate escalation and restore flows of materials critical to U.S. security, but they largely reverse Chinese responses to U.S. policy and raise concern that short-term political relief may undermine long-term American strategic interests.
Read at The Atlantic
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