After almost 20 hours of marathon trade talks across two days, US and Chinese negotiators arrived back at the starting point they had brokered one month ago.

Given the fragility of US-China relations and the worldwide consequences of when they sour, any progress along the path of de-escalation is welcome.

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will have to sign off on new framework for reviving a trade truce brokered last month. Credit: AP

But the key takeaway from Tuesday’s incremental outcome is about as prosaic as the new agreement was underwhelming. Trade wars are easy to start, easy to escalate and extremely difficult to unpick, let alone win.

After being holed up for two days in London’s opulent Lancaster House, officials from both camps emerged late in the evening with what appears, at best, to be a Groundhog Day agreement to wind back the clock to the May 12 tariff ceasefire brokered in Geneva.

Unlike last time, there was no joint statement outlining the agreed terms, just a handful of remarks to reporters by the lead negotiators, where the main line of consensus appeared to be on what to call this bare-minimum breakthrough.

‘The negotiators have negotiated a handshake agreement to seek sign-off to agree that a previously agreed agreement is still their agreed-upon agreement’

“A framework” for implementing “the Geneva consensus” is how both US........

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