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May 2025
30m 28s

What does China want from the US? With J...

Financial Times
About this episode

The tit-for-tat tariff escalations between the US and China are on pause, at least temporarily. But if the world’s two biggest economies don’t make progress by July, they could return with a vengeance. How can the two parties make progress? And what does China actually want from the US? Soumaya Keynes speaks to Jay Shambaugh to find out. Shambaugh was the US Treasury’s undersecretary for international affairs under Joe Biden. In other words, he was in charge of the US’s economic relationship with China. He and Soumaya discuss how the Trump administration could negotiate with China, and how interwoven trade policy and national security have become.


Clips: CNBC Television, PBS News


Further reading:

Will Trump’s tariff climbdown save the US from recession?

The markets are declaring tariff victory too soon

US-China trade war is pushing Asian nations to pick sides, ministers warn


Subscribe to The Economics Show on Apple, Spotify, Pocket Casts or wherever you listen. 

Presented by Soumaya Keynes. Produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval. Flo Phillips is the executive producer. Original music and sound design by Breen Turner. The FT’s acting co-head of audio is Manuela Saragosa.


Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com


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