Time for Washington to scale back tariffs to guarantee a done deal

Guess the place has become popular speculation since Chile suddenly withdrew as host for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting it was due to host in Santiago later this month. Yet the conjecture is not about where that meeting will now be held, but about where the presidents of China and the United States will put pen to paper on what the two countries have agreed to so far in their trade negotiations.

The fallout from the two countries' explosive trade exchanges has been evident worldwide. The International Monetary Fund has concluded that 90 percent of economies are in a synchronized slowdown because of the world's two largest economies' trade war. And the guessing game stems from the appreciable anxiety worldwide that the hard-won detente between the two sides might go into meltdown if they delay too long in getting their deal confirmed in contractual form.

Which is not surprising given what happened when the two parties seemed close to agreeing a much broader deal earlier in their negotiations - The feel-good optimism engendered by that apparent reconcilement was swiftly rendered premature when the two sides abruptly backed away from it.