Title: Trade Friction: A Primer on the United States and China
Headings: Trade Friction: A Primer on the United States and China
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Trade Friction: A Primer on the United States and China
Trade Friction, Trade Spats & Trade Wars
Partial Equilibrium Model of a Trade Spat
Washington Consensus
State of Play
Alternative to Undermining Multilateral Trade Institutions

Content: The prospective tariff war the Trump administration intends to start with China will likely look like the Obama experience. Outsizedretaliation by China on industries beyond steel and aluminum such as agricultural, including the symbolic targeting of products politically important to Trump such as Harley Davidson motorcycles, Levis jeans and Kentucky bourbon, has made for high-profile optics. However, we would need to observe more far-reaching actions before characterising the ongoing friction as a trade dispute. Trade War
A trade war occurs when countries move beyond WTO involvement and issue punitive taxes against a country or economic bloc. The first sign isa period of disruption and devolution in global trade: dissolution of the global trading regime through the repeal of multilateral trade treaties such as NAFTA; aggressive erection of non-tariff barriers; caps on capital flows and the expropriation of foreign-owned firms and property. Such conditions portend sharp currency devaluations such as those of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Over the last 75 years the United States has provided the foundation and framework of the global trading system.