Is the U.S. about to sign a trade deal with China? On Thursday, Donald Trump will travel to South Korea to meet with Chinese president Xi Jinping. The meeting will conclude the Trump’s nearly weeklong tour through Asia, during which he signed trade agreements with Malaysia, Cambodia, and Thailand—each including commitments to support U.S. efforts to contain China’s influence.
In the days leading up to the meeting, representatives from the U.S. and China announced that they had agreed to a framework for a trade deal. But the details remain unclear, as does the likelihood of a final agreement.
Amid this uncertainty, we turned to some of the sharpest voices around to set the stage for the Thursday meeting. What are the stakes of the meeting in Busan? What should Americans hope for—or worry about—in any potential deal? And how might its provisions shape the domestic economy and Washington’s enduring struggle for dominance against its most powerful rival?
Here’s what our contributors had to say:
Patrick McGee, business journalist at the Financial Times and the author of the New York Times bestseller Apple in China:
I see the U.S.-China conflict as a contest between the Great Consumer and the Great Producer. These are the world’s two biggest economies and, as Elon Musk has memorably put it, a full decoupling would be like performing surgery on conjoined twins—the likelihood is high that both will die. Any kind of deal that avoids such high drama will be welcomed by Wall Street, but the details are what matter.
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