Why a U.S.-China trade deal won’t change much

That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here are some bits:

The trade talks are chaotic because a trade deal would be chaotic. By which I mean, it would be difficult to interpret and enforce, not unlike the present situation…

The basic problem is easy enough to state, though it is all but impossible to solve. Many of the U.S. objections to Chinese trade practices, regardless of their merits, are fundamental objections to how the Chinese economy is organized. They are more than mere complaints about easily monitored variables such as tariff rates.

…If a trade agreement is concluded, then, it is likely to have two parts: the parts that are easy to enforce, and the parts that aren’t. To the extent that the U.S. insists on greater Chinese compliance on the easier parts, a self-interested China will respond by shifting more trade onto the difficult-to-enforce parts of the agreement.

The tug of war will never cease. Trump will continue to tweet and move markets. The Chinese will continue to organize their economy to maximize state control. And maybe, over time, we will all recognize the broader truth: In a highly legalistic world, vague and hard-to define-strategies offer a competitive advantage.

Here is a new Reuters piece on how China already had started walking back many of its earlier commitments.

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