There are, of course, other ways to see/make sense out of what's going on here. Sure, the OP could eventually turn out to be correct, but another way to look at this is the U.S. giving a little to see if China will. The old adage applies: you gotta give some(thing positive) to get some(thing positive).
That China didn't respond to this "concession" is disappointing, but also not really surprising. China probably isn't going to give in the short term because Chinese leadership is a) under various internal pressures (due to Hong Kong) and any reciprocal "concession" on China's part would be seen as weakness. And b) Chinese leadership feels it cannot ever seen to be losing face (Hong Kong or not). Chinese leadership appears to be saying that doing so would send the signal that it fears loss of leverage both domestically and globally. (Ironically, this lack of concession could be interpreted as sending the very same signal. Complicated business, this. More on "complexity," three paras, below.)
Anyway, the advantage to the U.S. offering concessions is that it frames the U.S. as having the moral high ground. If China had said no (which it has) the U.S. can say, well, at least we tried. Of course, then we will have the "next level counter": the U.S. was never serious in its concessions....
The OP continues to insist on framing everything the U.S. is doing as Trump buffoonery. Again, in the end, the OP could wind up being correct (in that U.S. efforts failed (or backfired)), but at this point the OP's anti-Trump blah-blah-blah is just silly. Why? Two reasons.
First, the situation is far more complicated and connected to so many other issues and domains as to make the OP's criticisms superficial and facile. Second, even if we had a handle on threading the needle wrt all the various issues/domains, knowing the future ain't easy. Unexpected confounds appear in the domains we know about and confounds in domains we didn't anticipate also appear.
Until such time as the OP acknowledges the complexity of the various issues (s)(h)xe chooses to post and until such time as the OP acknowledges some of the things the Trump administration is doing may have some merit there's no reason to see anything the OP posts as anything other than #OrangemanBad rant.
--- End of line (MCP)
