On its own, the deal struck Monday between the U.S. and China to de-escalate the trade war is undeniably a positive development.
As part of the deal, the U.S. will temporarily lower tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 30 percent (which will be applied on top of other tariffs imposed by the first Trump administration). That may be enough to stave off the worst consequences of the tariffs and might unfreeze the flow of goods across the Pacific Ocean.
More broadly, however, the deal is a tidy illustration of how President Donald Trump has conducted his global trade war. With China, Trump hiked tariffs to astronomical levels while promising those taxes (which are paid by Americans) would unleash prosperity and create jobs. Then, the White House celebrated the agreement that reduced those tariffs as "the art of the deal." They are literally doing the meme.
