What the US-China Trade Truce Really Means

AWANI

In the debut episode of Woo Says, Melisa Idris sat down with Professor Emeritus Datuk Dr. Woo Wing Thye to unpack the economic shockwaves following the dramatic slashing of tariffs between the U.S. and China. Here is an excerpt of the conversation.

Transcript

00:00In the debut episode of Wu Says, Melissa Idris sat down with Professor Emeritus Dr. Wu Wingtai

00:07to unpack the economic shockwaves following the dramatic slashing of tariffs between US and China.

00:13During the session, Dr. Wu offered his candid take on what this move signals for global trade.

00:20Here is a snippet of the conversation.

00:21Well, I knew that the very high tariffs that they had imposed on each other

00:31basically decoupled the two economies.

00:35If it continued, it would completely eliminate trade between the two countries.

00:43And given how closely intermatched they are in production networks,

00:50I cannot see how a sudden rupture like this would not cause extreme pain on both sides.

01:00And the question is, number one, why are they doing this to themselves?

01:06Or rather, why is Donald Trump doing this?

01:09Number one.

01:10And number two, does he think he could get away with it?

01:15And what we see now is a very embarrassing picture for Americans to see Donald Trump

01:25make another unconvincing announcement of victory.

01:30That the Chinese have come to the table and we have got them to lower their tariffs from 125 to 10.

01:40Whereas the Americans, of course, also lowered their tariffs from 145 to 30.

01:47I have to ask you, why would you say that it's unconvincing?

01:52Unconvincing to whom?

01:53I mean, both sides are claiming victory, for sure.

01:56But why is the US unconvincing?

01:59Why is the US's claim to victory not convincing?

02:01Because, well, it is not convincing, largely because it got no concessions out from the Chinese

02:11other than, okay, you lower your gun, I lower my gun.

02:18That, but that is not a victory.

02:24A victory is when the other guy put down his gun and while you still have yours pointed at him.

02:30What it really shows is that China has gotten too big to be bullied.

02:37Catch the full conversation on all Awani International social media accounts at Power Affairs.

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