China and the US must narrow the trade gap by boosting trade, rather than curbing it

This time round, at the meeting in Florida, although US President Donald Trump does not have a figure as slim as Obama’s, the fundamental basis of the Sino-US relationship remains solid. US policy towards China, and for that matter China’s towards the US, is unlikely to change much from the days of the Obama administration, no matter how much rhetorical bluff Trump had tweeted before (and after) the election. Both countries, after all, share many common interests in tackling global issues like North Korea, nuclear non-proliferation and climate change.

On the day Trump welcomed him at the Mar-a-Lago estate, tomahawk missiles were hitting targets in Syria, in response to the Syrian government’s alleged use of chemical weapons in the country’s civil war. All of a sudden, speculation about the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia subsided in Washington. And, all of a sudden, Trump was boasting about his rapport with Xi on TV.