DANIEL MOSS: What a slip of the tongue reveals about a US-China trade war
'Both men muddied the waters more by refusing to clarify the status of the talks. Was it alive, dead or cryogenically frozen? Nobody could tell'
It may be one of the most opportune flubs in economics. A slip of the tongue by the U.S. Treasury's top international official offers one way out of the trade skirmish between the U.S. and China. Few serious people want tariffs ordered by President Donald Trump and the Chinese import restrictions imposed in response to degenerate into a trade war that would harm both countries. The trick is to find a decorous way for each side to back off. Maybe that formula already exists in a shelved channel for formal talks between the two nations. To set the scene, recall an awkward moment that occurred on March 18, far from Washington and Beijing. Treasury officials were in Argentina when they delivered a confusing message about the status of the U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, a long-standing frameworkfor negotiations. The Comprehensive Economic Dialogue is the latest iteration of a discussion launched with much hype in 2006 by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to provide a fo...
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