[this_user]

Negotiate about what? There isn't even a clear ask from the US side when they base everything on trade imbalances. Attempting to bring those to zero makes no sense and would do more harm than good. A country like Vietnam is not able to able enough expensive US goods to offset their exports to the US. Trying to squeeze these countries serves no purpose, and the absolute trade volumes with a lot of the smaller countries are so small that it's not even worth putting in the effort to attempt to negotiate anything.

So, what do they want? It is pretty clear by now that they don't even know. They started a massive trade war without a clear plan or way out, and now they are progressively walking it back and attempting to negotiate some quick, face saving deals like the UK one that barely does anything.

And if they really are worried about China, then they need allies to be able to isolate the Chinese and put enough pressure on them. Except, they have just alienated everyone who could have helped with that.

These are not the actions of some master strategist, but of someone who is in way over his head.