Starting a trade war with your primary trading partner is stupid enough but doing it as a game of chicken trying to extract concessions is even dumber when your demands are vague, keep changing, and don't make any sense.
Trump wants China to buy but not sell, basically, and to eat the costs of tariffs to avoid imposing those costs on Americans, which is never going to work.
Xi and his people have dealt with Trump before, however, and know they just have to politely refuse and wait him out. And in the meantime, they are coaxing Europe to move away from the US and realign with them.
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