Like a slow motion train wreck, we can see what’s coming, but are powerless to stop it. No longer do facts matter. No longer is there appetite for cautious deliberation. No longer can we assume cooler heads will prevail. The guardrails and emergency brakes that prevented the relationship from running off the tracks in the past have fallen into disrepair. Where else to go, but into the abyss?

The U.S.-China trade relationship actually supports roughly 2.6 million jobs in the United States across a range of industries, including jobs that Chinese companies have created in America. The following is a list of a benefits to the U.S. economy due to trade with China, and also a link to the full report.

The full American tax reform is an enormous topic, but its impact at home is what matters, not whether the trade deficit barrows. Similarly, Beijing will respond forcefully to anything like a 35% across-the-board tariff aimed only at China. But in the case of the current BAT, China is best served by focusing on fixing its own house.

China has become a vital trading partner for the US over a long period, with bilateral commerce in 2015 reaching $598.1 billion, accounting for 16% of US foreign trade. The ensuing US trade deficit with China cannot be blamed on – or controlled by –currency exchange rates, and the new administration must think more broadly as it shapes its economic policy.

As Trump takes office, it is very important for economic and trade officials from both countries to sit down and talk through not only the difficulties and disputes, which they must, but also more importantly, how we can exploit a great future together.

The Trump administration may exert unprecedented strategic pressures on China against the background of continuous implementation of the pivot to the Asia-Pacific. But that is unlikely to boost the US economy for many reasons, and the Republicans’ realist diplomatic philosophy and Trump’s businessman’s pragmatism make it possible for reversals in the next US government’s aggressive China policies.

While addressing the existing problems in the manufacturing sector at home, the in-coming Trump Administration needs to enhance collaboration with China, for more Chinese investment in America in general, and in the manufacturing sector and massive infrastructure development in particular.

Strategic surprise and a cultivated image of irrationality is a classical strategy in a game of brinkmanship. One side highlights its willingness to “dance too close” to the cliff’s edge and maximize risk, leading its opposition into eventual retreat. Trumps’ discussion with Tsai Ing-wen must be seen through the prism or feigned irrationality. Trump, a studious businessman, may have considered the strategies of past presidents and found the “Madman” hypothesis compelling for his ultimate goal: to leverage Chinese adamancy over core national interests like the Taiwan issue into an agreement over trade and jobs – his existential political pledge.

In today’s world trade, the production process — from product design, raw material procurement, financing, manufacturing, final assembly, marketing and logistics — normally stretches across many countries. Many products in international trade are known as “global products”. Globalization has produced huge cost-savings on industrial and consumer goods at every level, and any effort to restrict American businesses to sourcing and production in the US will shrink the domestic economy instead of expanding it.

The U.S.-China relationship is complex and often fraught, but getting it right is possibly the most important economic and foreign policy task of any President. The pathway to a more advantageous U.S. economic relationship with China will not be easily forged, but it is vital to the American economy. As China’s President Xi Jinping told Trump recently, a cooperative U.S.-China relationship is the only pathway forward.