US, China Seek to Avoid Trade War Escalation and Salvage Trump-Xi Meeting in Malaysia Talks
The Return of Tense Trade Diplomacy
In October 2025, the world's two largest economies, the US and China were back on the hot seat for trade talks after just a three-month pause in Kuala lumpur, Malaysia. The two-day gathering was held to head off what many think could be the ultimately most harmful leg of th U.S. When the two sides met in the Malaysia, the idea was essentially to prevent this secondary crunch from souring the setup talks between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping on the eve of an ASEAN Summit in 2025.
The key purpose of this assembly is to ensure that the already scheduled talk between President Trump and President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit isn't scotched by politics, trade sanctions or mutual tactical distrust.
And the talks' consequences could reverberate across world markets, sup€ply chains, and economies that rely on trade flows between Beijing and Washington. At the end of the day, the back-and-forth trade taffy, tariffs back this up.
The Background: A Trade War That Never Truly Ended
Flash forward to today The economic conflict has officially never really healed, despite signing the Phase One deal just nine months ago in January 2020. The agreement delivered a respite, but steered away from any of the more serious issues dealing with I.P, state subsidies or tech transfer regulation.
When Trump returned to the White House in 2025, his government hit reset on being soft with China. Re-examining semiconductor restrictions, maybe producing new levies for CN, and exploring ways to get U.S. And for its part, China began imposing export controls on rare earth minerals while cracking down on U.S. tech firms operating in China—the Commerce Department's sales of Huawei patents were first on the hit list.
Why Malaysia? The Strategic Neutral Ground
Hosting these fresh negotiations were symbolic and strategic for a reason. Malaysia is a neutral country, friendly with both China and the US, providing a diplomatic space geographically removed from the theatrics of their confrontations – and also because Southeast Asia is remaking the calculus of global trade. As Western firms shifted small parts of their supply cha
I am putting mine together with yours: The Taiwan Question vs And while it’s not officially on the agenda for Davos IOCS, the specter of Taiwan lurks in the background around every sentence that’s spoken about economic issues.
Economics, which is interrsustainability Climate EcoWatch 2 Green 2025 / September a at reports House.
However, Trump’s rebranding of the system as 'America First Trade Discipline?
... more favorably with regulatory approach of level is post-salefulAmerica’s current economic Moreover, Trump’s decision is far from disinterestedly wielding Washington in bilateral negotiations.
That said, a lot of people watching Trump’s manoeuvre-ing suspect he would like to chalk this up to some version of win before facing the electorate in the 2026 mid-terms where trade and jobs data for his undo account.
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