The White House has long said that any trade agreement they sign with the Chinese government must include structural reforms to the Chinese economy including a demand that China cease or at least cut subsidies for state-owned businesses.
According to Reuters, Trump regime officials have backed away from that demand and if an agreement includes language on subsidies, it will be so vague as to be meaningless.
In the push to secure a deal in the next month or so, U.S. negotiators have become resigned to securing less than they would like on curbing those subsidies and are focused instead on other areas where they consider demands are more achievable, the sources said. [...]
“It’s not that there won’t be some language on it, but it is not going to be very detailed or specific,” one source familiar with the talks said in reference to the subsidies issue.
If Trump is as thirsty to sign something as he appears to be, we should probably expect to see a series of additional cave-ins in the coming weeks.
The fact that Trump is asking China to shift their retaliatory tariffs from one group of Americans to another for political reasons, knowing that China won't rescind all of their tariffs he if won't do so, was probably a sign that he's almost ready to give up.
In the end, if Trump does sign an agreement in the coming weeks, it looks increasingly likely that it will be a nothingburger that won't lead to substantial changes or economic progress for the vast majority of Americans. But I think we saw that coming from the beginning.
Making the kind of sweeping changes to the global economy that Trump has fever dreams about would require significant sacrifices and pain that no one is willing to make. The global economy and all it entails is here to stay and that much was clear before a trade war was even a twinkle in Trump's eye.