President Trump’s measures to help ZTE get back in business are based on flawed logic. They suggest that steel and aluminum is more crucial to America’s national security than semiconductor chips, which are extremely pervasive globally and used in modern warfare. This is absurd, Patrick Mendis and Joey Wang argue.

Although many interests in the U.S., China and around the world will be damaged if the world’s two largest economies engage in a trade war, it is likely that Trump would have to back down first, increasing China’s global power and influence.

Friction is inevitable, trade war is not.

China’s response – increasing imports and accelerating domestic structural reforms – will support high-quality long-term growth.

Can the US be as pragmatic as China?

The ZTE crisis has shocked China by revealing its vulnerability to foreign countries in advanced technologies. Even though the U.S. is fully justified to punish a Chinese company for violating the rules, it should take into account that if it is perceived as exploiting China's dependence, it could face further difficulties in making progress in other fields, such as reducing China's market barriers.

China-US interdependence should prevent the two countries from entering a Cold War. Mutually assured destruction will prevent a hot war.

How China and the U.S. can strike a new deal.

At its core, the current flare up in U.S.-China trade relations is only the latest episode in a long-running rivalry between the two sides in science and technology. Washington should take the present climate as an opportunity to engage China in a constructive way and look inward for ways to shore up its own tech sector.

The US should stop resorting to unilaterialism and protectionism on trade issues. In this way the economic cooperation between China, the United States, and other countries can be further consolidated and developed.