Editorial Board

The U.S.-China Trade Cease-Fire Isn’t a Done Deal

Despite claiming otherwise, the U.S. hasn’t achieved much in the latest round of talks. 

We’ll take what we can get.

Photographer: Ng Han Guan/AFP

President Donald Trump’s deals tend to be larger in the telling than the reality. The trade truce he has claimed to have struck with China is yet another instance.

Following talks last week in Washington, the president announced a breakthrough. China, he said, had agreed to step up its agricultural imports from the U.S. — “the greatest and biggest deal ever made for our Great Patriot Farmers in the history of our Country.”