The global economy hinges on a phone call that hasn’t even been scheduled.

As the Trump administration escalates its trade war, and as China retaliates, the American president and his aides say they are expecting Mr Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, to call.

“I have great respect for President Xi,” President Donald Trump said at a Cabinet meeting last week.

“He’s been a friend of mine for a long period of time, and I think that we’ll end up working out something that’s very good for both countries.”

But Mr Xi is ghosting Mr Trump. He has flown instead to South-east Asia this week to meet with leaders there to try to persuade them to stand with China in the trade war.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson earlier in April posted a video of foundational Chinese leader Mao Zedong speaking in 1953, during the Korean War, in which China fought the United States: “No matter how long this war is going to last, we will never yield. We’ll fight until we completely triumph.”

A bromance with Mr Xi that Mr Trump has desired for years is slipping out of his reach.

With that goes a quick resolution to Mr Trump’s trade war, tipping the US economy closer to a recession and vaporising trillions of dollars from the US stock market since he took office Jan 20. The trade conflict also threatens to inflame military and diplomatic tensions between the two superpowers.

With Mr Xi, Mr Trump’s standard playbook of escalating conflict between two nations to get to a leader-to-leader summit has not worked so far.

Mr Trump asserts that China has cheated on trade with the United States for decades but that the world’s two most powerful men can reset relations once they talk on the phone and meet.

It is the kind of high-stakes, man-to-man, prime-time moment that Mr Trump craves. In his view, the end goal of diplomacy is to have leaders parley to reach deals and secure splashy headlines. Mr Trump is especially drawn to the idea of becoming partners with Mr Xi and other autocrats.

But in Mr Xi, he has encountered an authoritarian leader who steered his nation in a much more nationalistic dire...