There is much talk about a potential global trade war, arising from the tit-for-tat announcements by Washington and Beijing about punitive tariffs on some of each other’s trade goods. US President Donald Trump initiated it by saying that China must reduce its massive trade surplus with the US.
An important plank of then-US presidential candidate Trump’s electioneering was to set right the perceived unfair — to the US — trade regime with its trading partners, particularly China, which had led China to accumulate large trade surpluses through low US tariffs on Chinese goods, as well as “manipulating” its currency to make its exports even cheaper than they already were with depressed wages in China.
