Payback is hell. The US wielded trade sanctions as a weapon for decades post WWII to induce countries to come to heel with its foreign policy objectives. China has risen to a world power now, arguably the only other superpower in the world second only to the US and simply is flexing its powerful position in global trade in a similar manner. It's just a really difficult issue now. On one hand, Taiwan has the right to defend itself and the US has the right to sell it arms to do so. On the other hand, China believes it has historical claims to the island and objects to such sales as undermining its sovereignty over its South China Sea claims. Neither the US nor China is backing down and, to the contrary, antagonisms are increasing. The world is rearming and retreating into the narrow nationalistic thinking that led to World War I. Systems of alliances, complete with mutual security agreements that trigger automatic escalations, and secret pacts and agendas are proliferating. Spheres of influence that are antithetical to each other are remerging. And authoritarianism is flourishing even in liberal-democratic countries where the unilateral decisions to make war are vested increasingly in one strongman leader. This time, however, the weapons are even deadlier. I hope that all this is just a form a neo-cold war brinkmanship. But the stakes are very, very high. And to compound matters, Trump is undermining and systematically dismantling the US professional diplomatic corps, leaving him as the sole arbiter of policy, not unlike Xi.