U.S.-China Trade Deal | The Capital Cable #121

On September 19, 2025, U.S. president Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed to a summit meeting on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in South Korea at the end of October. The Trump administration also reached a TikTok deal to prevent the app's ban in the U.S., with the app's algorithm to be operated in the U.S. and overseen by a U.S. company. What does this mean for the future of U.S.-China trade war? Is a trade deal close? What are some outstanding issues between the two sides?

Joining Mark Lippert to discuss this and more are Scott Kennedy and Victor Cha of CSIS, and Peter Harrell of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Peter Harrell is a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an attorney advising on international legal, regulatory, and geopolitical risks. From January 2021 through 2022, Harrell served at the U.S. White House as senior director for international economics, jointly appointed to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council. From 2015 to early 2021 Harrell was an attorney in private practice and served as Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. From 2012 to 2014, Harrell served as the deputy assistant secretary for counter threat finance and sanctions in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. From 2009 to 2012 he served on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, where he was instrumental in developing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s economic statecraft agenda. 

Scott Kennedy is senior adviser and trustee chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). A leading authority on Chinese economic policy and U.S.-China commercial relations, Kennedy has been traveling to China for 37 years. His ongoing areas of focus include China’s innovation drive, Chinese industrial policy, U.S.-China relations, and global economic governance.

This event is made possible by general support to CSIS.