https://arab.news/ww5yy
If you are not paying attention to the dramatic developments between China and the US, you must understand that something consequential has just taken place.
The US government is backtracking — if not altogether retreating — from the trade war and broader escalation it launched against China. Unlike the hyped-up language and repeated threats by President Donald Trump to impose massive “reciprocal tariffs,” to “decouple” the US economy from China and to correct “the greatest theft in the history of the world,” the retreat is happening in hushed tones and coded diplomatic language.
“I think both countries concluded that having an all-out global trade war between the United States and China would be deeply damaging to both sides and to the world,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week. He called this new phase one of “strategic stability.”
Rubio’s words are misleading. It was not China, or any other country, that instigated the trade war. It began under the first Trump administration’s “America First” doctrine. In March 2018, Trump signed a presidential memorandum clearing the way for tariffs to be imposed on Chinese goods under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Within three months, 25 percent tariffs were in effect on $34 billion of Chinese imports.
