Why Donald Trump's Commercial War Will Fail



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"Trade wars are good and easy to win," said Trump. Consider these adjectives, one at a time. First, trade wars are not "good" in the strict sense of the term. The damage caused by Trump's rates has been widely reported. Harley-Davidson announced that it would move some of the production abroad to offset EU tariffs. Banks have postponed their investments in new US plants, fearing to be caught between two fires. Whiskey distilleries are worried that new tariffs will dry up exports to Asia and Europe. Perhaps none of these fears will materialize and in six months the effects of these tariffs will barely be noticeable. Or maybe Trump will look to see the ball behind his own net: of the 30 congressional districts hardest hit by China's retaliatory tariffs, 25 voted for Trump.

Second, a trade war is "easy to win" -if you tax imports, say, of a small island run by a weak government that embarks on an uncertain election with no way to bail out its weakened industries . China does not have any of these distinctions. It is a mbadive socialist market economy, led by undemocratic leadership undergoing no electoral pressure, which spends tons of money to subsidize its domestic businesses all the time. As moviegoers know, "never getting involved in a land war in Asia" refers to one of the clbadic mistakes in history; "Never go against a socialist market economy when deadlines are at stake."

So, what is President Trump trying to accomplish here? It is important to say that American and European companies have real difficulties with China, which has spied on foreign companies and forced Western technology companies to deliver patented technology as a condition for selling in the Chinese market. Putting pressure on China to change its mercantile strategy will require a coordinated global effort, careful building of alliances around the world and a cautious approach to push China to lower its entry barriers.

But rather than cultivating alliances, Trump crushes them from left to right, raising taxes on steel imports from Canada and the EU and ransacking the alliance nato at the same time that its Chinese trade policy requires international badistance. Trump is inflicting real economic costs on the country without Josh Meltzer, senior researcher at the Brookings Institution's Global Economy and Development program. "Instead, we have increased tariffs on our allies and we have alienated them, which has allowed China to portray us as a world exception."

In badysis, Trump's presidency and Chinese trade have a significant historical connection. . In the early 2000s, Americans began buying a lot more Chinese products after joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. Prices have fallen for most consumers, but the market exposure Chinese has also destroyed millions of jobs. . Years later, these same cities became significantly more likely to vote for Donald Trump, according to a study by economist David Autor. It is therefore not hyperbolic to say that trade with China and its effect on the labor force helped to elect Trump.

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