David Fickling, Columnist

China's Born-Again Free Traders

Washington is giving the makeover an unintended boost.

March 20, 2018 at 7:42 AM UTC

David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

1521530227_GettyImages-905930816 — Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

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Presume not that China is the thing it was.

That's certainly the message Premier Li Keqiang intends to convey with his promise Tuesday to cut levies on imports. Almost simultaneously, Bloomberg News reported that the Trump administration will impose tariffs on as much as $60 billion of Chinese products as soon as this week. Have the world's great protectionist and its leading free trader switched sides?