If one sat down and made a determined effort, it would be hard to come up with a more economically wrong-headed, diplomatically toxic and legally destructive negotiating position than that presented to China last week by a visiting US trade delegation.
Indeed, it is such an extreme set of demands that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that President Donald Trump’s administration, itching for a trade war, has produced an impossible agenda with the aim of goading Beijing into open hostilities. China has responded with bids of its own, ranging from fairly reasonable to almost as absurd as those coming the other way.
If the Trump administration simply wants an excuse that might play well back home to slap tariffs on Chinese goods, it has created one. But China has already shown it is adept at retaliating — and, unlike in the US, its leadership does not have to get re-elected. Contrary to Mr Trump’s assertions that trade wars are easy to win, this is one he may lose, politically and economically.