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11. Policy or Pique? Trump and the Turn to Great Power Competition

Author:
Deborah Welch Larson
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Political Science Quarterly
Institution:
Academy of Political Science
Abstract:
DEBORAH WELCH LARSON analyzes Donald Trump’s policy toward China and Russia and the return of great power competition. She argues that Trump’s personalization of foreign policy undermined his trade war with China, and efforts to improve relations with Russia and that the Joe Biden administration will continue to compete but seek cooperation in areas of shared interests.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Power Politics, Trade Wars, Donald Trump, Strategic Competition, and Joe Biden
Political Geography:
Russia, China, Eurasia, Asia, North America, and United States of America

12. The US–China trade war and phase one agreement

Author:
Chad P. Bown
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
The Trump administration changed US trade policy toward China in ways that will take years for researchers to sort out. This paper makes four specific contributions to that research agenda. First, it carefully marks the timing, definitions, and scale of the products subject to the tariff changes affecting US-China trade from January 20, 2017 through January 20, 2021. One result is that each country increased its average duty on imports from the other to rates of roughly 20 percent, with the new tariffs and counter-tariffs covering more than 50 percent of bilateral trade. Second, the paper highlights two additional channels through which bilateral tariffs changed during this period: product exclusions from tariffs and trade remedy policies of antidumping and countervailing duties. These two channels have received less research attention. Third, it explores why China fell more than 40 percent short of meeting the goods purchase commitments set out for 2020, the first year of the phase one agreement. Finally, the paper considers additional trade policy actions—involving forced labor, export controls for reasons of national security or human rights, and reclassification of trade with Hong Kong—likely to affect US-China trade beyond the Trump administration.
Topic:
Education, Trade Wars, Trade Policy, and Protectionism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

13. The unappreciated trend toward unilateral trade liberalization

Author:
Robert Z. Lawrence
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
Afrequently voiced complaint from the Trump administration was that US firms have faced a competitive disadvantage in exports because the US market is open and US tariffs are low but US trading partners protect their markets with high tariffs. The administration used this concern to justify raising US tariffs whenever it could. Lawrence argues that these claims should be more nuanced and account for the extensive unilateral liberalization by many countries over the past 30 years and that the grievances that motivated the Trump trade policies are increasingly misplaced. Many developing countries have reduced their tariffs unilaterally to rates that are far lower than they applied three decades ago and far less than the bound rates reflected in their World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations. Globally, on average, tariffs were not raised during the global financial crisis of 2008 and continued to decline through at least 2018. Even when shocks from imports resulted in serious injury to domestic industries, several developing countries temporarily provided safeguard protection but at levels that were lower than their WTO bound rates. This evidence of import liberalization also suggests that rising protectionism was not responsible for the slow growth in world trade that has been evident since 2011. It remains uncertain whether countries will now respond to disruptions to global supply chains since 2018 caused by Trump’s trade policies and the COVID-19 pandemic by reversing their tariff liberalization stance, but the sustained enthusiasm for new megaregional trade agreements suggests many countries will not.
Topic:
Emerging Markets, World Trade Organization, Trade Wars, and Protectionism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

14. China and America: From Trade War to Race and Culture Confrontation

Author:
Walter Woon
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
The Thucydides Trap is an intellectual trap for the unwary when uncritically applied to China. China is not a rising power; it is a returning power. The psychology is different. Misapprehending the nature of the problem will exacerbate it. First and foremost, it is essential to recognize that it is not “China” and “the Chinese” that challenge America’s dominance. America’s adversary is the People’s Republic of China (PRC) led by the Communist Party of China (CCP). The Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan has been an ally of America since World War II. The millions of people of Chinese descent abroad are not automatically aligned with the PRC. To refer unthinkingly to the “Chinese” challenge is intellectually flabby and politically misguided.
Topic:
Race, Culture, Trade Wars, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

15. The U.S.-China Trade War: Is There an End in Sight?

Author:
Simon Lester and Huan Zhu
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Donald Trump was a trade “hawk” long before he became president. In the late 1980s, he went on the Oprah Winfrey show and complained about Japan “beating the hell out of this country” on trade (Real Clear Politics 2019). As president, he has continued with the same rhetoric, using it against a wide range of U.S. trading partners, and he has followed it up with action (often in the form of tariffs). While many countries have found themselves threatened by Trump’s aggressive trade policy, his main focus has been China. As a result, the United States and China have been engaged in an escalating tariff, trade, and national security conflict since July 2018, when the first set of U.S. tariffs on China went into effect and China retaliated with tariffs of its own. In this article, we explore the U.S.-China economic conflict, from its origins to the trade war as it stands today. We then offer our thoughts on where this conflict is heading and when it might end.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Tariffs, Trade Wars, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

16. Has U.S. Government Angst over the China Danger Diminished?

Author:
Robert Sutter
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
The so-called “truce” in the trade war with the signing of the phase one U.S.-China trade agreement on January 15 comes amid indicators that the intense U.S. government consensus pushback against a wide range of perceived challenges posed by China may be subsiding.
Topic:
Government, Bilateral Relations, Economy, and Trade Wars
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

17. East Asia decouples from the United States: Trade war, COVID-19, and East Asia's new trade blocs

Author:
Peter A. Petri and Michael G. Plummer
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
he deepening US-China trade war and nationalist reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are reshaping global economic relationships. Alongside these developments, two new megaregional trade agreements, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), will refocus East Asia’s economic ties in the region itself. The new accords are moving forward without the United States and India, once seen as critical partners in the CPTPP and RCEP, respectively. Using a computable general equilibrium model, we show that the agreements will raise global national incomes in 2030 by an annual $147 billion and $186 billion, respectively. They will yield especially large benefits for China, Japan, and South Korea and losses for the United States and India. These effects are simulated both in a business-as-before-Trump environment and in the context of a sustained US-China trade war. The effects were simulated before the COVID-19 shock but seem increasingly likely in the wake of the pandemic. Compared with business as before, the trade war generates large global losses rising to $301 billion annually by 2030. The new agreements offset the effects of the trade war globally, but not for the United States and China. The trade war makes RCEP especially valuable because it strengthens East Asian interdependence, raising trade among members by $428 billion and reducing trade among nonmembers by $48 billion. These shifts bring regional ties closer to institutional arrangements proposed in the 1990s and incentivize greater cooperation among China, Japan, and South Korea.
Topic:
Treaties and Agreements, Trade Wars, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Free Trade, COVID-19, and Protectionism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

18. How the United States marched the semiconductor industry into its trade war with China

Author:
Chad P. Bown
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
The US-China trade war forced a reluctant semiconductor industry into someone else’s fight, a very different position from its leading role in the 1980s trade conflict with Japan. This paper describes how the political economy of the global semiconductor industry has evolved since the 1980s. That includes both a shift in the business model behind how semiconductors go from conception to a finished product as well as the geographic reorientation toward Asia of demand and manufactured supply. It uses that lens to explain how, during the modern conflict with China, US policymakers turned to a legally complex set of export restrictions targeting the semiconductor supply chain in the attempt to safeguard critical infrastructure in the telecommunications sector. The potentially far-reaching tactics included weaponization of exports by relatively small but highly specialized American software service and equipment providers in order to constrain Huawei, a Fortune Global 500 company. It describes potential costs of such policies, some of their unintended consequences, and whether policymakers might push them further in the attempt to constrain other Chinese firms.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Trade Wars, Industry, and Protectionism
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

19. Global Supply Chains, Economic Decoupling, and U.S.-China Relations, Part 1: The View from the United States

Author:
Sagatom Saha and Ashley Feng
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
China Brief
Institution:
The Jamestown Foundation
Abstract:
The trade war has defined the current adversarial relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). While President Donald J. Trump has at times openly expressed admiration for Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping, his administration has pursued policies consistent with economic and technological decoupling. These policies include reforms that strengthen the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS); greater usage of the export control system, especially the Entity List; and threatening the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to force U.S. companies back to the United States. These policies, taken to their logical end, would see the secular decoupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies and the rerouting of the global supply chains that bind them. The interim trade deal has done seemingly little to change the structural economic conflict between Beijing and Washington. If economic decoupling came to pass, it would portend a sweeping reorientation of the global economy that many analysts regard as lying outside the bounds of conventional analysis. Yet some Trump administration officials, such as Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro, have promoted economic decoupling as their desired aim (SCMP, June 20, 2018; Forbes, December 3, 2019). President Trump himself has “ordered” American companies to look for alternative suppliers outside of China, or to return production to the United States (Twitter, August 23, 2019). The Trump Administration’s trade and investment restrictions have not been limited to U.S. companies—they also include pressuring third-party countries and foreign companies to abide by U.S. restrictions. Chinese companies are also relocating their manufacturing capabilities abroad—in part because of secular economic trends, but U.S. actions are accelerating the process. Simply put, sustained U.S. policies on China can encourage economic decoupling, but only if global economic trends continue to cooperate. Those policies are nascent, but could likely become a structural feature of the U.S.-China economic relationship—especially since a harder stance towards China has gained traction among both major parties. This has been demonstrated by widespread criticism of Chinese trade practices in both parties, and in bipartisan votes on legislation antagonistic to Beijing, such as the Hong Kong Democracy and Human Rights Act or the UIGHUR Act (see further below). The Trump Administration has pursued a three-pronged approach in breaking down economic supply-chain links: 1) escalating tariffs, which discourages bilateral trade; 2) imposing investment restrictions and export controls that punish tech transfers; and 3) issuing threats to U.S. firms that do business in China under the IEEPA. These current policies preview what could become a new orientation in U.S. policy towards China, regardless of who leads the United States at the beginning of next year.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Hegemony, Conflict, Trade Wars, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

20. Time for China to Forge a New Strategy towards the US

Author:
An Gang
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Pangoal Institution
Abstract:
This summer thus far has greatly frustrated those in support of friendlier China-US relations. China-US trade talks recently took a turn for the worse. The Trump administration, after accusing Beijing of reneging on past trade commitments, has sought to raise tariffs to 25% on US $200 billion worth of imported Chinese goods. The Office of the US Trade Representative has proposed slapping tariffs on nearly all remaining imports from China, which are valued at approximately $300 billion. It is now soliciting public comment on the proposed list, which is expected to be issued as early as late June, following a congressional hearing.
Topic:
Civil Society, Bilateral Relations, Trade Wars, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America