The Amazon is burning, but the U.S. and China may be able to leverage their relationship with Brazil to coerce it into action - should they feel that it is in their best interest to do so.

China may not have been the start of the China-US trade war, but it is a key factor in finishing it. Beijing must consider serious reform if it wants to repair its ties with the U.S. and preserve its ties with the rest of the globe.

Strategically, politically and economically, Trump’s Iran policy is failing. Rather than force Iran into submission, Trump’s tactics have decreased Iran’s incentives to continue compliance with the nuclear deal. The era in which the United States could unilaterally push through its global agendas has come to an end.

The Trump administration's attempts to decouple China-U.S. economic ties equates to dangerous market distortion – driving unnecessary dislocation, inefficiencies and global trade disruption. Such measures will harm both Chinese and U.S. economies in the near- and longer-term and contribute to a less open and more divided world.

President Trump’s aggressive and unpredictable China policy is hurting rather than helping the United States and further harming the global economic situation. Trump’s desire to establish his own legacy rather than serve the American people’s best interests, and in so doing radically change the course of 47 years of China-U.S. relations, is a serious strategic mistake.

The latest round of tariffs against China may be the blow that eventually knocks down an already wobbly American economy.

President Trump’s unorthodox methods of dealing with the trade war are usually the ones making the headlines, but American lawmakers are generally split as to how the US should move forward with its eastern counterpart.

The current trade war will do little to curb China’s economic development. It masks deeper unease in the US about threats to American hegemony of an increasingly multi-polar world. Yet both countries stand to gain from continued cooperation. The escalating trade war, driven by an outdated mindset of American exceptionalism, will do more harm than good.

This will be the tenth year that I have taught a course at Yale called “The Next China.” The course focuses on modern China’s daunting economic transitions. It frames the moving target that eludes US President Donald Trump’s administration, which is taking dead aim at the Old China (a convenient target for a leader who wants to resurrect Old America). The incoherence of Trump’s trade and economic policies, with all their potentially grave consequences for the global economy, is a destabilizing byproduct of this disconnect.

At President Xi Jinping’s invitation, President Duterte of the Philippines will visit China this month, as relations warm between the two countries. While opposition voices in the Philippines warn of undue Chinese influence, the visit offers both leaders an opportunity to continue to promote economic cooperation, stability and peace.