Don’t Count on U.S.-China Trade Relations Warming Up Anytime Soon

President Trump, who made taking on China’s unfair trade practices one of his top priorities after coming into office in 2017, has shown that he’s willing to use unconventional tools to get Beijing to the table. But even if negotiators from his administration get China to commit to their demands—including protecting U.S. intellectual property and buying massive amounts of U.S. goods and services to narrow the trade deficit—that doesn’t mean America will go back to business as usual with Beijing.

This isn’t solely a function of the administration’s brinkmanship, which has led both countries to the point of imposing new duties of roughly $360 billion over the past nine months. Shortly after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer visited China for a round of negotiations in late March, China’s vice premier, Liu He, returned to Washington for what may be the final push for the two countries to reach a deal. After meeting with Liu on April 4, Trump said that they were “rounding the turn,” while Liu said that a “new consensus” had emerged, according to Xinhua News Agency. But business leaders, both parties in Congress, and U.S. allies are also running out of patience with China’s trade practices, leaving Beijing with few allies in Washington to help defuse an economic standoff.