As Trump intensifies its trade war, the US and China are moving away endlessly

The Trump administration continues to look for other ways to limit the ability of US companies to do business with China. The Commerce Department is introducing new export controls that would prevent US companies from selling sensitive technologies, such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, to Chinese companies. And he blacklisted several Chinese technology companies, including telecommunications giant Huawei, for buying sensitive US technology.

"We have never seen anyone do what President Trump did," said Chad P. Bown, a researcher at the Peterson Institute for the International Economy. "It seems more and more that this is the new normal."

Mr. Bown's research shows that the trade war is entering a period of rapid escalation. Rates between the United States and China remained roughly constant from October 2018 to the middle of this year. However, after the failure of negotiations between the two parties in May, the president set in motion a series of increases that will raise US tariffs on China by about 12 percentage points in six months, and will end to tax the vast majority of goods that China sends to the United States. States. China responded by increasing tariffs on US goods worth $ 75 billion and stopped purchases of agricultural products.

"The trade war has been pretty slow for a while, but things are now getting ready very quickly," Bown said.

On Sunday, China started to apply a 33% tariff on US soybeans, compared with only 3% for US or Brazilian soybeans, Bown said. On December 15, China will start taxing US cars and parts at a rate of 42.6 percent, compared to 12.6 percent for those from Germany or Japan.

These barriers are rapidly reconfiguring the global economy. US imports from China fell 12% in the first half, while exports to China fell 19%. Trade between China and other countries has increased, easing some of the decline in the United States.

Some large multinationals have announced in recent days that they are trying to rapidly reduce their dependence on China. The toy maker Hasbro and clothing retailers like Express and Abercrombie & Fitch have announced that they will move their supply chains to new manufacturing centers in Vietnam, India and elsewhere. Part of this change was already underway, given the rise in wages in China, but the trade war made it imperative financially.