Macroscope | The Florida summit could be a ‘game-changer’ for US and China
‘Trump told his electoral base he’d create meaningful jobs. China can help him do that and in the process achieve what it wants...’
United States President Donald Trump has done a fine job lowering expectations for his April 6 to 7 summit with China’s President Xi Jinping, tweeting that the meeting “with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses”.
Investors might wish to take that downbeat assessment with a large pinch of salt.
In November Xi said he would work with the newly-elected Trump, just as he had with former President Barack Obama, “to uphold the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation,” sentiments echoed almost verbatim by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Beijing on March 19.
The bottom line must surely be that the world’s two largest national economies have a vested interest in finding common ground. Both sides are ultimately rational actors.
But for now, Trump may be tempted to try and enlist China’s help in financing his plans to reinvigorate US infrastructure
As China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Friday of the China-US relationship “the market dictates that interests between our two countries are structured so that you will always have me and I will always have you. Both sides should work together to make the cake of mutual interest bigger and not simply seek fairer distribution”.
