The 2018 US-China trade conflict after forty years of special protection

Bibliographic Data

ID12917952
AuthorsChad P Bown (0000-0002-6963-7857, Peterson Institute for International Economics, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume12
Issue2
Pages109-136
Publication date2019-04-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueChina Economic Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1753-8963 • E-ISSN: 1753-8971
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17538963.2019.1608047
OpenAlexW2943262180
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited15

In 2018, the United States suddenly increased tariffs on nearly 50 percent of its imports from China. China immediately responded with tariff retaliation covering more than 70 percent of imports from the United States. This article assesses what happened in 2018 and attempts to explain why. It first constructs new measure of special tariff protection to put the sheer scope and coverage of the 2018 actions into historical context. It then uses the lens provided by the 2018 special tariffs to explain the key sources of economic and policy friction between the two countries. This includes whether China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and industrial subsidies, as well as China’s development strategy and system of forcibly acquiring foreign technology, were imposing increasingly large costs on trading partners. Finally, it also examines whether the US strategy to provoke a crisis – which may result in a severely weakened World Trade Organization (WTO) – was deliberate and out of frustration with the institution itself

Business · China · Context (archaeology · Economics · International economics · International trade · Market economy · Political science · Scope (computer science · State (computer science · Subsidy · Tariff · Trade war · Canadian Policy and Governance · Global trade and economics · Law · World Trade Organization Law

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