Economists call for alternative path to US-China trade wars

But the interim deal, which Trump has said he hopes to sign with China’s Xi Jinping at a summit in Chile next month, would crucially push discussions of other U.S. complaints such as China’s industrial policies to later rounds of negotiations.

WASHINGTON: A group of prominent economists from the U.S. and China called for the world’s two largest economies to abandon their trade war and agree to a new path forward that would give both countries more latitude to both pursue their own domestic economic policies and hit back at those that hurt them.

In a joint statement issued in China on Sunday, 37 economists -- including Joseph Stiglitz, Michael Spence and three other Nobel winners -- bemoaned what they said has been a descent of the trade conflict into a binary debate where the only emerging solutions are either wholesale economic reforms by China leading to a converging of economic models or an economically-damaging "decoupling.”