The U.S. and China will hold talks shortly to determine whether the phase 1 trade deal is proving successful. If they do not there’s the prospect of a return to escalating tariffs. The prior four rounds of U.S. tariffs, known as lists 1 to 4A, were applied and adapted between July 2018 and February 2020 and led to a 35.6% drop in imports of the products covered in H1’20 compared to H1’18. Products that were not subject to tariffs only declined by 6.5% on the same basis, indicating the destructive power of the tariffs on Chinese exports. There appears to have been a slowdown in the impact...