When former U.S. President Donald Trump ascended into the Oval Office in January 2017, he kicked off his presidency by investigating unfair trade practices in China as part of his ‘America First’ policy. A year later, he imposed hefty tariffs on a wide range of goods from the Asian nation, sparking outrage and retaliatory tariffs from its trading partners. A year ago, Washington and Beijing inked the Phase One Trade Deal whereby Beijing committed to importing an extra $200 billion worth of American goods over the next two years, including purchasing an extra $52.4 billion of U.S. energy supplies from a baseline of just $9.1 billion in 2017. But observers who have been hoping the new administration will mark a return to normalcy on trade issues after the drama of tariff battles and tweet diplomacy of the Trump-era will be sorely disappointed. Two weeks ago, the new U.S. trade […]