Realistic Outcome of the U.S.-China Trade Talks
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/05/19
Ken Wilcox currently serves on the boards of the Asia Society of Northern California, the Asian Art Museum, and UC San Diego’s 21st Century China Center, as well as Columbia Lake Partners, a European venture-debt fund. He is on the Board of Advisors of the Fudan University School of Management in Shanghai and teaches as an Adjunct Professor at U.C. Berkeley. Ken holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a former member of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He is former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank (2001–2011) and led SVB’s joint venture with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Wilcox discusses the ongoing U.S.-China trade negotiations. Wilcox critiques Trump’s misleading narrative and highlights the longstanding issues rooted in CCP-controlled market advantages, regulatory manipulation, and intellectual property appropriation. Despite years of talks, these core problems remain unresolved. Wilcox casts doubt on Trump’s goals to repatriate U.S. manufacturing and secure fair competition, arguing that bombastic tactics only harden China’s position. He warns that both nations’ win-at-all-costs strategies risk escalating conflict. Meaningful resolution requires structural change, Congressional intervention, and diplomatic recalibration—otherwise, the U.S. may face enduring consequences of a fractured global trade landscape.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the realistic outcome of the U.S.-China trade talks?
Ken Wilcox: It is difficult to reach a conclusion in a world dominated by a leader who is as unpredictable and inconsistent as ours is today. Trump has positioned Biden as the person who caused the conflict with China and himself as the person who is fixing what Biden messed up. This is a total misrepresentation. Is Trump horribly misinformed or is he being deliberately misleading? A rhetorical question.
Jacobsen: What underlying tension have been longstanding and others are new between China and the U.S.? What about the most frequently disrupted or complicated cross-border business agreements, and do those remain unresolved today?
Wilcox: The underlying problem is that: 1) after all these years (since China was given membership in the WTO well over 20 years ago) the CCP still maintains an uneven playing field in Chinese; 2) the CCP controls this playing field; 3) the CCP promulgates regulations that advantage Chinese companies and disadvantage American companies; 4) the CCP subsidizes Chinese companies; 5) the CCP assists Chinese companies in appropriating knowledge from American companies; and finally 6) the CCP is actively involved in creating companies to compete against American companies using the very knowledge that they appropriated.
The so-called good news has changed nothing. The underlying problem is the same as it was before. And regarding the tariffs: Trump imposed them, the CCP imposed counter-tariffs, Trump gave in and rolled his back; the Chinese rolled their counter-tariffs back. We’re right where we were last week. Nothing has changed.
Jacobsen: Which sectors have the most stake in these negotiations? What signals or policy moves should observers watch from the Chinese leadership?
The CCP agreed to discuss things further. They have been discussing things for many years. Before we applaud, let’s wait and see if Trump scores any meaningful wins in the course of these future discussions.
Trump’s original goals were: 1) to open up China to American companies, in a way that would allow them to compete on a level playing field; and 2) to return the manufacturing that migrated from the U.S. to China over the past 30 plus years back to the U.S. If either of these were even possible, they would each take several years to effect.
Xi cannot afford to grant Trump meaningful concessions because he would lose face (and maybe his position) if he did.
Trump has succeeded in making it even more difficult for Xi to make concessions, by being so bombastic, in a very public way.
Jacobsen: How can China help America compromise, and vice versa? How might domestic Chinese priorities in maintaining internal stability and economic growth influence negotiation strategies and expectations of the U.S.? Any role for joint ventures or private-sector diplomacy in easing tensions? If trade talks break down, what potential long-term consequences are reasonable?
Wilcox: My tentative conclusions include the following:
- Trump’s approach to tariffs will do us more harm than good, and it already has.
- The question of whether or not we should be decoupling from China may have already been answered. China does not believe that cooperation with the U.S. is either desirable or possible. The CCP has already acquired all our knowledge and we are now only in their way as they rise to the top.
- Trump’s style of negotiation is—ironically—in some ways Chinese: keep the opponent off balance, ruthlessly apply whatever leverage you have, demean and deceive your opponent, and seek to win at all costs. What good could possibly come out of a negotiation where both parties employ this strategy? It’s true that practitioners of win-win will lose when confronted by “win at all costs”, but when both parties are committed to winning at all costs, can anyone win at all? Especially when both have nuclear warheads?
This last frightening thought leads to the possibly forlorn hope that our elected officials might grow a badly needed backbone and refuse to accommodate such a dangerous strategy of nuclear-armed chicken. The Congress could take back its power of the purse and strike down the tariffs. It’s difficult to see what winning means now, but insofar as the status quo has been so thoroughly upended, decision-makers need to define how the U.S. could correct the failings of its earlier policies and mend the fences that have been so abruptly bulldozed. If, that is, it’s possible. Otherwise, we will need to live in the mess we have created.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Ken.
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