The trade friction between the United States and China has been going on for several months， and it is increasingly clear that the problem lies in Washington's unilateralist approach and bullying tactics, Xinhua News Agency reported.

The current US administration has been mixing partial and misleading trade statistics with spurious allegations appealing to populist sentiment, which is inadvertently doing more harm than the mere sum of the two. Such tactics erode the trustworthiness of the US.

The US has run a large deficit in the trade in goods, it has a huge surplus in the services trade, and US multinationals have raked in huge profits from the Chinese and global market. It is beyond any reasonable doubt that the US has greatly benefited from the globalization of trade. 

"Trust in America has declined faster than the vast majority of its citizens can appreciate," veteran journalist Philip Bowring, long based in Asia, wrote in a recent article in the South China Morning Post.

That observation should serve as a wake-up call. Washington's unilateralist approach and bullying tactics have made it difficult for China and every other sensible nation to engage in any serious deal-making with the US. It also puts the future of globalization in harm's way.

The only solution out of this mess is for Washington to come back to the negotiating table, avoid politicizing the trade friction and work together towards an amicable resolution. This will help the US recover some trust and credibility.