Welcome to Axis ProRata, a podcast that takes just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech business and politics.

I'm Dan Premack. On today's show, why Microsoft is now the world's most valuable company and something you might not remember about President George H.W. Bush.

But first, trade war truce, at least for now.

President Trump and Chinese President

Xi Jinping had a highly anticipated dinner on Saturday night in Buenos Aires as part of the G20

summit. On the menu was trade negotiations, and the upshot was that the U.S. will postpone plans

to increase tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods from 10% to 25%, which have been scheduled to take place on January

1st. The delay is for 90 days, basically in order to give room for more negotiation. In return,

China is said you have verbally agreed to increase some purchases on U.S. agricultural equipment

and reduce the flow of fentanyl, even though details on both are still unclear. Now, to be sure,

this is all welcome

news because no one ever really wins a trade war. But from the reaction, like the stock market

surge, you'd think the two countries had actually signed something, or at least in greed and

principle to resolve underlying differences like intellectual property theft. But the reality

is they haven't. And all the happy talk in the world can't really paper that over. So here's an example. Back in July, U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm killed a $44 billion deal to buy a Dutch rival called an XP, and they did that because they had failed to win Chinese regulatory approval. After Saturday night's meeting, the White House

boasted that China would now be more open to okaying the deal so long as Qualcomm reapplied.

Qualcomm's response? Thanks, but no thanks. We're done with that. The question now is if negotiators

can do better, can they really make progress in just 90 days, or is this simply kicking the can down the road for a photo op?

In 15 seconds, we'll go deeper on this with Axios Financial Correspondent Felix Salmon. But first,

this. There is more news out there than ever before, but these days, it's harder than ever to find it and to know what to trust.

Axios AM takes the effort out of getting smart by synthesizing

the 10 stories that will drive the day and telling you why they matter. Subscribe at signup.axios.com

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