Agreed. Clearly a negotiation tactic. I expect nothing material to come out of the upcoming meeting. I work in public equities and this has been such an ongoing headache... anyone remember when a full deal was supposed to get done by end of March 2019?

What a joke...

And what, making a Uyghur American the National Security Council's China director also a negotiation tactic? Anyone in equities who believes that there will be a deal isn't paying attention.

phyek just said "I expect nothing material", so obviously is not expecting a deal.

Phyek stated that it is a negotiation tactic, which implies that decisions are being made in respect to potentially making a deal. The overriding consensus on both sides of the isle are that China must be confronted. There will be no deal.

Trump himself confirmed this after he blacklisted ZTE right before the talks last year.

> how would the administration gracefully reverse these blacklisting actions

Why should they reverse these?

It's hard to imagine a trade deal where sanctions against Chinese companies are upheld.

There is bipartisan support for the sanctions against Chinese SOE's. If POTUS were to waiver congress would act instead.

The SOE's are a minuscule short list compared to the billions in goods that the Trade War has escalated to.

It's related insofar as no China US deal means China no longer gets special treatment and a free pass on bad behaviour.

>without it being patently clear that this was never about human rights?

Have you been paying attention the last 3 or so years?

Or I guess, to phrase my confusion differently, if they're hoping to exchange this for a concession, and it will be clear to all that this was just a negotiating tactic when they roll it back ... why bother pretending at the outset that it's a principled stand over human rights? What's the point of the lip-service?

One answer is:

Because lip-service here and now is easy and has almost no consequences.