Opinion | Here’s a win-win zero-tariffs trade deal that Donald Trump and Xi Jinping should shake on

Victor Gao says the US-China trade war has been more of a tariff war. If the world’s two largest economies could reach a tariff agreement, Donald Trump would go down in history for opening up a zero-tariffs Chinese market for US goods

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Published: 12:45am, 19 Jan 2019Updated: 3:35am, 19 Jan 2019

How the United States and China deal with each other in 2019 is of vital importance, as it will have an impact not only on these two countries, but on the world as a whole.

The US-China trade war, unprecedented in scale and severity, has further increased the risks to peace and development. Fortunately, US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Argentina on December 1, and agreed to a three-month truce before more tariffs would be imposed on Chinese exports to the US.

Towards the end of December, Trump and Xi had a pleasant phone call and exchanged New Year greetings. In early January, the Chinese and US teams met in Beijing for extensive dialogue to hash out the details and narrow the differences on trade.

Although there was no joint communique after this round of working-level talks, it is expected that Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He will visit Washington before the end of January for higher-level dialogue, and that Xi and Trump will review the results of this dialogue and decide how China-US relations should proceed.

The world is holding its breath for what may or may not happen. The general expectation is that, for their mutual benefit as well as global economic peace, it is better for the US and China to move on from the trade war to what matters the most: development.