When US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had their summit meeting in April, the two main issues were North Korea’s nuclear weapons and US-China trade.
The Chinese side pledged itself to a “100-day plan” for trade talks that would boost US exports and reduce the US’ trade deficit with China. Now that 100 days have passed, not only has no solution been found to the North Korean problem, but trade between China and North Korea actually increased over the first half of this year, which means that China has relaxed its sanctions on Pyongyang.