I generally agree with this thread but would also add in a couple of things related to negotiating strategy and approach to China not touched upon here. First, I've generally ignored all the supposed deals that have previously been struck because they clearly weren't 1/n
Anything more than pinky swears and you knew Beijing was never going to follow through. This appears to be moving towards a more substantial first phase deal BUT we have heard all this before so would continue to urge skepticism until realized. Second, this "first phase" deal 2/n
Seems relatively pointless. Beijing is opening financial services and agriculture because they badly need USD, pork, and soy. They would have done this regardless. Third, first phase deals are intended as stepping stones not end points. Despite critics argument that 3/n
Tariffs have achieved nothing, they have focused Beijing on how to placate DC far more than any other time and given Trump admin leverage previous administrations could only dream of. It would be a huge mistake to make any material concession in phase one on tariffs or other 4/n
Issues like Huawei. Waivers on Huawei have been quite minimal and would kill US attempts around the world. Material concessions would kill any push towards phase 2. Fourth, the deal killer for China has always been any type of review or oversight of deal execution. This 5/n
Also has to be a deal killer to not include it. If there is one thing we know about China it is that they will cheat on any deal before the ink is even dry. Fifth, Trump administration needs to know they operate from a much stronger position than Xi economically. Chinese 6/n
growth is at best half the official rate while US economy continues to grow solidly. Get into the non headline data and China is even worse. Own that the US is in a better position. Sixth, Trump will get killed politically and he should, by Democrats and his own party 7/n
If phase 1 isn't a good deal. Furthermore, he has lots of support to go further on issues like human rights covering Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Settling for any second rate deal will make him look bad on arguably his signature issue. Conversely, he can get a lot more mileage 8/n
By not having a deal and pushing human rights and democracy protections. In short, there is a lot more downside to the details of the deal that have become public than not doing a deal. Done
