Kim Jong-un has a maximum pressure and engagement strategy of his own
Jung H. Pak
Brookings Institution, April 18

“Kim’s not just good at maximum pressure, he’s also pretty good at maximum engagement…If all goes as planned, Kim would be squeezing in a couple of years’ worth of summits–with regional and international leaders, including the U.S. president–into the first six months of 2018, without having to make any concessions on the nuclear weapons program, his country’s appalling human rights situation, or its probably ongoing cyberattack operations. As with the weapons program, Kim’s approach to engagement seems to be: Go bigger and bolder.”

“Ultimately, Kim’s maximum pressure and engagement are two sides of the same coin–a strategy aimed at keeping and advancing its nuclear weapons program, removing the United States from the Korean Peninsula, maintaining strategic relevance in the region, and potentially trying to create conditions for unification on his terms. While we should support the current mood of diplomacy and engagement, we should not be easily lured by Kim’s sweet whispers of peace, without credible actions to accompany his promises.”

Trump’s trade spat: Time for a reboot
Ryan Hass
Brookings Institution, April 11

“Much of the discourse around U.S.-China trade tensions in the U.S. media and in my interactions with U.S. officials has treated the matter as if it were a single-player game, with the United States simply needing to muster the will and maintain this fortitude to demand that China alter its unfair trade practices. This misses the mark in two ways: It overlooks Beijing’s incentive structure, and it treats the trade dispute as a confined challenge that Washington alone confronts, rather than as a global problem emanating from Beijing.”

“For Beijing, this trade dispute is more than a U.S.-China test of wills. It also is an opportunity to create distance between Washington and its closest partners by framing the United States as the unilateralist instigator and China as the principled protector of the global trading system. Beijing judges that as long as it can prevent an “everyone-versus-China” dynamic from emerging, it can weather unilateral pressure from Washington and retain its state-backed industrial model. The longer U.S.-China trade tensions persist, the more likely Beijing will offer concessions to traditional U.S. partners like Japan, Canada, and the EU to draw them closer to China and further from the United States.”

Xi’s speech shows China willing to deal, but not with a gun to its head
David Dollar
The Hill, April 10

“Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech at Boao assuaged investors’ concerns about a potential trade war — at least temporarily. The overt message was that China will continue to gradually open up on its own terms, and the implicit message was that American firms may lose out on the benefits if President Trump pursues the trade war.”

Xi did not directly mention the trade dispute with the U.S. and did not say anything that is likely to escalate trade tension with the U.S., which is probably why markets reacted well. He made some indirect swipes at the U.S. when he said that we should put aside ‘Cold War mentality’ and not view trade as a ‘zero-sum game.’”

US-China rivalry will shape the 21st century
Martin Wolf
Financial Times, April 10

As a U.S.-China Trade War Looms, Are Trump and His Trade Hawks Winning?
Kimberly Ann Elliott
World Politics Review, April 9

“The odd thing about these moves, with the notable exception of Trump’s latest China threats, is that they mainly hit close American allies, rather than Beijing. So depending on how things play out, Trump’s trade policies are likely to have more serious and far-reaching implications for Washington’s political relations, rather than for the U.S. economy. Relying on the little-used authority to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum for alleged national security reasons, as the Trump administration did, risks opening a huge loophole for protectionism while increasing trade tensions globally. Exempting allies in Europe—albeit after the fact and only temporarily, while not exempting allies in Asia—raises a host of other troubling geopolitical issues.”

“Trump’s trade approach differs from his predecessors in three key ways: the volume of activity; the willingness to use legal authorities others have avoided; and skepticism of, if not outright disregard for, WTO rules. To date, the Trump administration has stretched rather than broken those rules, but that could change if it follows through with its tariffs on China.”

How China’s proposed tariffs could affect U.S. workers and industries
Mark Muro, Jacob Whiton, Robert Maxim
Brookings Institution, April 9

“Our top line estimates suggest while the total number of jobs potentially disrupted by an all-out trade war remains modest, the count encompasses a diverse and shrewdly chosen “hit list” of hallmark American industries—one that appears well-calculated to scare both red and blue America.”

“The data and its geography—likely intentional—seem to guarantee that no clean political divide separates tariff-affected counties from others. Instead, the Chinese tariff lists seem designed to ensure that both parties—and virtually all parts of the country—are maximally disturbed by the ongoing saber-rattling.”

Trumpism: Speak Loudly and Carry a Big Stick
Uri Friedman
The Atlantic, April 6

“It’s tempting to view the recent reshuffling of Donald Trump’s foreign-policy advisers—along with the make-or-break nuclear diplomacy with North Korea, looming trade conflict with China and other countries, pending deployment of the National Guard to the border with Mexico, and threatened U.S. withdrawal from nafta, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Syrian war—as merely the latest episodes in the Trump Show. But they may instead be the start of a new season.”

Why China is Confident It Can Beat Trump in a Trade War
Steven Lee Myers
The New York Times, April 5

“China’s leaders sound supremely confident that they can win a trade war with President Trump. The state news media has depicted him as a reckless bully intent on undermining the global trading system, while presenting the Chinese government as a fair-minded champion of free trade. And China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has used the standoff to reinforce the Communist Party’s message that the United States is determined to stop China’s rise — but that it no longer can. China is already too strong, its economy too big.”