“I’m keeping my expectations in check. Tariffs are high. Tensions are high. It’s easier to impose tariffs than to unwind them,” said Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator who is now vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
President Donald Trump despises trade deficits — a situation when the US buys more from another country than it sells. In his view, it’s a sign that America is being “ripped off” and treated unfairly. (Economists are much less convinced of his argument.) Since China is the world’s second-largest economy and a manufacturing supercenter, it’s perhaps unsurprising that, across all trading partners, the US ran the largest trade deficit with Beijing last year, at nearly $300 billion.
