Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2019-06-24)

P O L I T I C S

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Edited by

Jillian Goodman

Trump and Xi have turned this year’s G-20 into a

high-stakes showdown

What’s a Global

Economy Between

Friends?

Therewas a timein thenot-too-distant past

when“G”summitswereearnest,eventurgid

affairs,atwhichworthymatterswerediscussed

inpolitesitdownsbetweentheleadersofmajor

economies.ThatwasbeforeDonaldTrump,of

course.If theAmericanpresidenthasdoneany-

thingduringhistimeinoffice,he’saddeddrama,

spice,andthedualtensionsofconsequenceand

uncertaintytotheonce-carefullyscriptedartof

internationalsummitry.

Andyet, astheleadersoftheGroupof 20

countriespreparetogatherinJapanonJune28-29,

Trump is outdoing even himself. His threats to

escalate a trade conflict with China into a total

economic war have turned the Osaka summit into

arguably the most consequential since the ones

surrounding the 2008 global financial crisis. As if

the stakes weren’t high enough, Trump also has the

trade gun barrels aimed at the European Union and

Japan, two allies he’s threatened with auto tariffs—

not to mention his public fuming about both euro

zone and Chinese monetary policy.

For all of that, the biggest event in Osaka is

likely to be a sideline meeting between Trump

and Chinese President Xi Jinping, which financial

marketswillbewatchingcarefully.Afterplaying

downitslikelihood,Trumpraisedexpectationson

June18 when he tweeted that, after a “very good

telephone conversation,” the two leaders would

hold an “extended meeting” during the summit.

The best-case scenario laid out by officials and

analysts from both countries is that the meeting

ILLUSTRATION BY BAPTISTE VIROT

Bloomberg Businessweek June 24, 2019