, Columnist
A U.S.-China Trade Deal Doesn't Matter Anymore
Confrontation has already widened beyond the point that such an agreement can resolve.
This has gone well beyond soybeans.
Photographer: AFP/Getty Images
This article is for subscribers only.
Global stock markets may continue to gyrate on every dodge and parry in trade talks between the U.S. and China, but the unacknowledged reality is that a deal no longer matters much.
Sure, it would be better to have one than not. Yet the relationship between these two powers has changed so much since negotiations began a year ago that they have become a sideshow in a greater confrontation that no trade pact can resolve.