“The scale of the overall harm here is pretty modest… For every consumer sad about higher prices, there’s a producer who’s excited about them. And for every producer who’s sad about lower prices, there’s a consumer who’s happy. And most of all, the dividing line between who wins and who loses on any given round of tariffs and counter-tariffs has relatively little to do with whether you’re Chinese or American and a lot to do with what your specific role in the global economy is… The problem is it’s a bit hard to say what Trump is trying to achieve here…

“America’s official list of demands contains a bunch of items that are somewhat in tension with each other… In an actual negotiation, you tend to need to settle for half a loaf, and it makes a difference which half you really want. There’s one scenario in which the US and China settle on some handshake deals to narrow the trade deficit via larger Chinese purchases of US agricultural commodities. And there’s another scenario in which the US really drives hard to get China to ease up on technology acquisition… nobody is exactly sure… [how this] will end.”
Matthew Yglesias, Vox

“Both the United States and China seem to be digging into their positions in ways that will be hard to resolve with the mutual face-saving that typically turns high-stakes negotiations into deals… The United States is demanding that China codify rules into law to protect American companies (and their technology) that do business in China. Chinese negotiators now reject that possibility…

“‘It looks like there was a level of specificity that China wasn’t willing to accept and a level of ambiguity that the Trump administration wasn’t willing to accept’... Given where things stand, it may take… [a] reset between [the] two top leaders, built on personal relationships, rather than the slow grind of hammering out an agreement that is more typical of economic diplomacy.”
Neil Irwin, New York Times

Some note that “the market sensitivity to threats and counter-threats in the trade war is quite remarkable… When it appears less likely that a conflict over well-defined and ultimately not-that-difficult commercial issues can be resolved, rational observers conclude that it is also less likely the United States and China can manage issues ranging from 5G wireless technology to North Korea, from the future of Taiwan to global climate change, and from the management of globalization to the security architecture of the Pacific region…

“This carries with it an important lesson for both sides: It is risky to turn the pursuit of even vital national objectives into an existential crusade. Rather, even when nations have objectives that are in conflict, it is important to seek compromise, to avoid inflammatory rhetoric and to confine rather than enlarge the areas where demands are being made. Establishing credibility that promises will be kept and surprises will be avoided is as or more important with adversaries as with friends.”
Lawrence H. Summers, Washington Post

“What Trump should do about China, and what Democrats should advocate, is improve relations with democratic European allies. Stop undermining the European Union. Stop dividing NATO. Stop waging tariff wars. Work with democratic allies in Europe, Asia and around the world to present a united and powerful front to meet the challenge from China without policies that could crash financial markets, create the next deep recession or trigger the next global financial crisis.”
Brent Budowsky, The Hill