WTH Is Going on With Trump's China Deal? Scott Lincicome Explains.

For Donald Trump, China has served as a major justification for
economic protectionism, highlighting our dependencies and need to
onshore products with national security implications. But that’s
the talk. The reality is more dismal: a less-than-hawkish trade
deal this month, with tariffs that seem to isolate allies and,
inversely, reshore production on China’s mainland. For Team
Trump, three camps have merged into one contradictory mess within
the administration. Members of these camps look to use tariffs as
leverage for trade deals, as a source of revenue, and to protect
domestic industry. No single tariff can achieve all three and
brief, ambiguous trade deals do little to decouple with China,
friend-shore, and rebuild American industry. Where do we go from
here? How will these tariff camps shake out? And how can we
improve our strategic approach to global trade and protect
America from the very real China threat?


Scott Lincicome is the Vice President of General Economics the
Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy
Studies. He writes on international and domestic economic issues,
including international trade; subsidies and industrial policy;
manufacturing and global supply chains; and economic dynamism.
Lincicome also is a senior visiting lecturer at Duke University
Law School, where he has taught a course on international trade
law. Prior to joining Cato, Lincicome spent two decades
practicing international trade law at White & Case LLP, where
he litigated national and multilateral trade disputes. He also
authors a column for The Dispatch entitled, Capitolism.


Read the transcript here.


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