In The News

Financial Times: China and US in Trade Battle

Shawn Donnan and Yuan Yang April 4, 2018
Trade adds jobs and profits, and tariffs increase prices, reducing jobs and profits. Hours after the Trump administration announced a 25 percent tariff on 1,333 Chinese products including robots and locomotives, China responded with tariffs on 106 products imported from the United States. The United States claims decades of intellectual property theft from China, and China points to US violations...

Caixin: US-China Trade Tensions

Yukon Huang March 28, 2018
The Trump administration was warned about the economic and political consequences of protectionist measures like tariffs. Analysts point out that tariffs are illogical, and will fail to reduce the US trade deficit with China or boost jobs. The trade deficit and the jobs will shift to other countries. “It is a mistake to assume that trade is a bilateral issue when it is multilateral, especially in...

The Wall Street Journal: US to Apply Tariffs on Chinese Imports

Bob Davis March 23, 2018
“President Donald Trump sought to rewrite the rules of global trade on Thursday with a long-pledged trade offensive against China,” writes Bob Davis for the Wall Street Journal. “The administration’s actions, including a threat of tariffs on $60 billion of imports and tighter restrictions on acquisitions and technology transfers, came in response to what it claimed were Chinese efforts to obtain...

RSIS: Trump’s Protectionism

Linda Lim March 21, 2018
The Trump administration adopts a protectionist stance, contending that the United States is not treated fairly in trade agreements. Protectionism is harmful for economies, and critics are many, inside the United States and beyond, for the US tariffs on aluminum, steel, solar panels and more. Yet politicians often rely on protectionist messages that appeal to the working class, increasing voter...

Times of India: Road to Trade War

Nayan Chanda March 14, 2018
Just before a special election in a congressional district spanning suburbs and rural areas of southwestern Pennsylvania, the US president announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports for the purposes of national security. The hope was to rally blue-collar and rural workers to vote for the Republican candidate, the “world economy be damned,” as YaleGlobal founding editor Nayan Chanda notes....

Reuters: World Steel Markets Unfazed by Tariffs

Maytaal Angel March 14, 2018
The US is proceeding with 25 percent tariffs on steel imports and 15 percent on aluminum. Canada and Mexico are exempted for now. The US is the world’s second largest consumer of steel, at just under 100 metric tons, lagging far behind China at almost 700 metric tons. The US is the fourth largest producer, again lagging behind China, responsible for half the world’s steel and driving global...

Financial Post: Tariffs Set Dangerous Precedent

Joe Chidley March 6, 2018
The Trump administration announced a plan to impose tariffs: 25 percent for steel imports and 10 percent for aluminum. There are many unknowns including exemptions for allies and close trading partners or certain products. The plan relies on Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and World Trade Organization rules which allow blocking imports for national security purposes: “The World...