With sincerity US can build on consensus with China

No magic wand has been waved to make the differences between the United States and China vanish overnight. But the highly anticipated talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump over dinner in Buenos Aires on Saturday have produced a welcome consensus that the two sides will work on ways to resolve their differences: Most pressingly their trade dispute, which had been threatening to deteriorate into a full-on trade war with the prospect of additional tariffs looming on Jan 1.

The fact that the two leaders could sit down for candid talks and agree to avoid the looming escalation of trade tariffs to allow for continuing trade negotiations, shows that both sides are aware of how damaging they would be, not just to each other but the global economy as a whole.

But given the complexity of interactions between the two economies, the rest of the world will still be holding its collective breath while it waits to see if the series of constructive plans that are in the works can put bilateral relations back on a cooperative rather than confrontational track.