What the new U.S.-China agreement portends is a ‘law of the jungle’ trade world where the most powerful joust for the upper hand
There is less to the Phase 1 China–U.S. trade agreement than the initial fanfare in the U.S. would suggest but the negative consequences for the global trading system should be of concern to others, including Canada. Even more ominous perhaps are the dramatic moves China is making to develop Artificial Intelligence , which will likely be the major driver of economic growth and security prowess in the next quarter-century.
Having all the time in the world for negotiation, the Chinese chose to wait the Americans out knowing that Trump needed something he could celebrate as a victory on the eve of the 2020 elections. In the end, Trump blinked, presuming that some relief from the trade war just before Christmas was better than none.
What this agreement portends is a ‘law of the jungle’ trade world where the most powerful joust for the upper hand leaving middle and small powers to fend for themselves as best they can. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unwisely called publicly on the U.S. to refuse to sign the new trade accord until China released the two Canadians held in detention without legal recourse for more than a year.
Even more ominous than the trade friction between the U.S. and China is the extent to which China is overtaking the U.S. on the development of artificial intelligence. As Graham Allison contended recently in the National Review, “Beijing is not just trying to master AI, it is succeeding.” For those who have been confident that authoritarian governments are doomed to fail “AI offers a realistic possibility of upending this proposition.
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