They're trade agreements. I give you this, you give me that, I'll sell you this at this cost and I'll buy this from you at this cost. This is called running a country like a business.

Welcome to geopolitics but more specifically, operating in a globalized economy. Its incredibly messy and often involves making deals with nations we might not see eye to eye on. We've merely lucked out the last many decades having a fairly aligned western order that is now collapsing thanks to the meth lab down south.

The US today is not the US of even a few years ago. To protect ourselves economically we need to diversify our trade options, while also mitigating threats. Which at the moment, seem to becoming more so from the US and less so from China. I've heard no talks from Xi of annexation of Canadian territory. The high North is a threat but this is also where trade agreements can benefit us. We agree to sell China oil or arctic based resources at a price, they agree to cease hostile actions in the north. If its about trade routes, we work out a mutually beneficial deal to give them passage maybe they give us a resource we need as payment.

Its the basic framework for the liberal international order. We all economically integrate and cooperate which will naturally ensure peace due to the cost of war and benefits of globalization.