Can Xi and Trump Resolve Trade Tensions at G20 Summit?
Kevin Rudd on Fox Business
On November 29, Asia Society Policy Institute President Kevin Rudd spoke with Neil Cavuto of Fox Business about what to expect from the G20 summit in Argentina this weekend. According to Rudd, the summit will be more focused on bilateral relations between the United States and China and less on a collective agenda across the 20 countries. This is because the leaders in Buenos Aires will be most concerned about the prospects of the current U.S.-China trade war expanding into a more general economic war.
"Which way President Trump finally jumps on this is an unknown," states Rudd, pointing to the fact that "there are different views in the White House" on how to deal with China. He does think that President Trump will be watching the volatility in the U.S. stock market and will want to avoid the trade war triggering a wider economic crisis.
With regards to resolving the current trade tensions, Rudd offers two ideas.
One, if they can reach an agreement in Buenos Aires on the scope of the reduction in the bilateral trade deficit, say to a scale of about a 100 billion, and then secondly, a series of fundamental tariff changes which bring Chinese tariffs closer to American levels, that may be sufficient to cause the United States to defer the current scheduled increase in American tariffs on Chinese imports.