Did the U.S. win the trade war? Depends what we were fighting for.

How to understand Trump's "phase one" deal with China

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

The United and China have finally called a truce in their trade war. What the Trump administration is calling "phase one" of a hoped-for larger agreement reduces tariffs on Chinese exports in exchange for China's commitment to addressing intellectual property theft and to purchasing $200 billion in additional American goods and services.

Is that what victory looks like? It depends very much on what objective you think the war was being fought for in the first place.

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Noah Millman

Noah Millman is a screenwriter and filmmaker, a political columnist and a critic. From 2012 through 2017 he was a senior editor and featured blogger at The American Conservative. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Politico, USA Today, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Modern Age, First Things, and the Jewish Review of Books, among other publications. Noah lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.