Opinion

The U.S.-China trade war is cooling off. But the tech war is heating up.

President Trump this week seemed to be nearing a preliminary truce in his trade war with China. But the deeper danger that still lies ahead is a Sino-U.S. technology war, as the two countries race to develop artificial intelligence.

Beijing and Washington seemed to be clearing a path for a limited tariff-reduction deal with Thursday’s announcement by China’s Commerce Ministry of a tentative agreement that “China and the U.S. should remove the same proportion of tariffs simultaneously based on the content of the deal.” That’s far from an overall settlement of trade issues, but U.S. financial markets took it as good news.