Are "Trump Trade Wars" Inevitable?

President Donald Trump, at his joint address to Congress on February 28th 2017 stated: “I believe strongly in free trade, but it also has to be fair trade. It’s been a long time since we had fair trade. The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, warned that the abandonment of the protective policy of the American government would create want and ruin in the country… It’s time we heeded his advice and his ways.”

Free trade has been at the cornerstone of capitalist democratic economies now for many years, so this statement from the President of the biggest trading country in the world looks to President Lincoln to justify a return to protectionism and a reversal of the trend to ever freer trade that has been characterized by the post World War II international economic consensus. This has economists somewhat aghast at what is going on with the Trump administration, as after the new President immediately withdrew from the progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, we also know that the Trump administration is now looking to not only renegotiate NAFTA but also has explored the idea of perhaps bypassing World Trade Organization (WTO) rules so as to impose a border adjustment tax (we'll come to what that is below).

So how will this all play out? Well there is already a battle inside the administration about how protectionist the policy pronouncements will be (see here), and it looks like the battle between the two factions will continue for a while yet, despite the fact that Steve Bannon has left the White House staff. In a recent NYT article (see here) there is doubt that President Trump will be able (or want) to follow through on his campaign promises with as much gusto as he suggested he would on the campaign trail. And in an article in the FT (see here) there were signs emerging that the Beijing relationship has now becoming badly frayed as the Trump administration initiates several unfair trade practices investigations. The danger though here is that the "soft-liners", although they might win in the short run, will not hold the upper hand as we approach the mid-term elections in late 2018 and beyond, as the administration realizes they are being punished at the ballot box for not fulfilling on these commitments. So let's take stock of where we are in terms of President Trump's campaign promises. In not particular order, they were:

1. Withdraw from TPP

2. Halt T-TIP negotiations

3. Renegotiate or scrap NAFTA

4. Institute a border tax (tariffs) with Mexico so as to pay for a wall on the Mexican border

5. Declare China to be a currency manipulator

6. Impose a border adjustment tax (BAT) as part of the tax reform package that should be forthcoming from the administration.

The first 2 on the list have now been completed, but the third is the one that has everyone guessing as to the consequences, so let's look at NAFTA first. 

NAFTA is now embedded into the North American economy, so changing the basis of the Treaty that established NAFTA requires a summit with both Canada and Mexico, and the negotiations for this summit are now taking place. 

President Trump has made it clear that he wants a complete rewrite of NAFTA, and that led to a tense start to the negotiations, which got underway this week (see here). The Canadian foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, noted that “We pursue trade, free and fair, knowing it is not a zero-sum game”. She added that: “it is worth pointing out that we are the biggest client of the United States. Canada buys more from the U.S. than China, the UK and Japan combined.” 

Perhaps the US team in the negotiations, led by U.S. trade representative Richard Lighthizer, sees trade bilateral deficits ( - and the US does run a small deficit with Canada) as a measure of fairness of trade with that entity.  Any student of international economics understands that this is not the case - it is simply a component of the overall trade balance, and reflects a balance of comparative advantages between the two countries. Also it should be noted that Trump's ire has not been directed at Canada (with the isolated case of the softwood lumber issue) but in the NAFTA context his ire has largely been directed at Mexico. This is because whereas the U.S. ran a goods and services trade surplus with Canada in 2016 of about $12.5bn, the U.S. ran a goods and services trade deficit with Mexico of $55.6bn.  But as we shall see below, the trade deficit with Mexico is dwarfed by the trade deficit with China.

Now although the topics to be discussed are rules of origin, managed trade (read more quotas), and so-called "Chapter 19" dispute resolution, whatever is in NAFTA 2.0 better reduce the U.S.'s trade deficit with Mexico, otherwise this will likely prompt President Trump to threaten withdrawal from NAFTA. But given the fact that much of the trade between the U.S. and Mexico is intermediate goods trade, it does make sense that the biggest part of the cross border trade would be the finished product (for example a vehicle), rather than the sum of all the parts that might be produced in the U.S. that are exported to Mexico (where the vehicle is then assembled). Given then that it is unlikely that trade with Mexico could ever get to close to in balance (or in surplus), I think that President Trump, given that he has made such a big issue of either pulling out of NAFTA or completely rewriting it, may decide to pull out if the Mexicans don't walk out first.  

What I think will possibly transpire is a return to CUFTA, which was the free trade agreement with Canada that formed the original basis for NAFTA. Although other economists might not agree with my assessment, I believe that President Trump will feel that he has to deliver on this particular promise if he is to stand any chance of re-election.  In order for NAFTA 2.0 to eliminate the trade deficit with Mexico would be import quotas.  I think these will be rejected by Canada, as they would also affect Canadian exports to the US. So there is no way forward that would satisfy all 3 parties and therefore this will possibly lead to withdrawal. Since the announcement of Steve Bannon's ouster as a Trump advisor, the probability of withdrawal has gone down, but the trade representative will still have difficulty delivering what the President wants out of a re-write of NAFTA.

When campaigning, Donald Trump also mentioned a 35 percent tariff on autos made by U.S. companies in Mexico. This tariff was originally mentioned with regard to also funding construction of the wall. This tariff would currently go against the rules of NAFTA so is unlikely to be implemented while the U.S. remains inside NAFTA. So if the U.S. does leave NAFTA then this idea might get resurrected as a means to deter manufacturing or assembly going south of the border.

On the campaign trail President Trump also promised to name China as a "currency manipulator".  But having met with Premier Xi Jingpin, Trump declared that China had manipulated its currency in the past, but was moving to correct the level of the yuan, and hence it would not be necessary to name China as a "currency manipulator".  So this is now off the table.  President Trump did, however, decide to pursue several probes against China, most notably on intellectual property (see here), but also on steel. Although the U.S. has not imposed steel tariffs yet, it seems that they are likely to do so (see here).  This so-called "section 232" review ( - that was initiated because of fears that threats to the U.S. steel industry from imports would not be in the interests of national security) has to be made public by mid-January. Then President Trump will have 90 days to react, perhaps implementing a steep tariff on steel imports principally from China, but also from all other steel producers.

The Border Adjustment Tax (BAT) has now also been abandoned as a proposition, but just to keep my readers fully informed, I will explain exactly what a BAT is. A BAT is essentially an import tariff coupled with an export subsidy by means of making exports tax free.  

So that is the current state of play on international trade policy and the Trump administration. As mentioned above, the current administration appears to be particularly concerned about turning the overall U.S. trade deficit into a surplus, or at least reducing it.  In the table below from the BEA, the bilateral trade deficit or surplus for the U.S.'s main trading partners is shown, and it can be seen that the majority of the deficit is with China, and this is fairly consistent over time. 

Source: US Census Bureau, Dept of Commerce

Of course what really matters here is the trend in the data, so I thought I would download the data and see exactly how a long term perspective can show that actually China is pretty much the only problem. 

Data source: Dept of Commerce; Graphic by blog author

Now the graphic clearly shows that although there was a deterioration in the trade balance with countries like Japan, Germany and Mexico over the early 2000s, it is the trade deficit with China that really takes off in the early part of the century, and although for countries like Canada the trade balance has actually improved, for China, with only a brief respite during the great recession, the overall trend has been towards a widening of the deficit.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands

So from an economic assessment, if one agrees with this approach, the President should really focus mostly on China, as this is where much of the trade deficit originates from. But what is the best way to tackle this? The U.S. trade representative has a detailed list of objectives which can be found here, but of course these only state objectives and not solutions.  

On a recent trip to China I visited a large container port off the coast of Shanghai ( - in fact it is at present the largest container port in the world), and was surprised to hear that half of the containers travel to China empty, but every single container is full leaving China. So the main problem with trading with China (and this goes for the EU too), is that China's trade with most of the rest of the world is unbalanced.  

This highlights the fact that although half of this problem is the U.S.'s problem, the flip side is that China clearly has a lack of consumption of imports in the sense that savings are high and when the Chinese do consume, much of their urban dwellers consume Chinese goods. The China issue prompted President Trump and President Jinping to set up a "US - China Comprehensive Dialogue", but as reported in the Financial Times last month (see here), this dialogue is a talking shop regarding the issues to be tackled, but nothing concrete to make it happen, and definitely no sign of agreement on the way forward. 

Clearly the Trump administration has changed tack and instead of calling the Chinese currency manipulators, has decided to go after the Chinese on various fronts by launching probes in specific problematic areas. The results of these probes though, if acted upon, will likely prompt reprisals, and perhaps WTO arbitration cases against the U.S. Certainly the Chinese appreciate that although the U.S. is not their largest trading partner ( - the EU is), that there are considerable risks to domestic economic growth if there is a trade war with the U.S.

So is a trade war inevitable with China?  I think that the answer here is still up in the air, but I still think the most likely outcome is narrowly in favor of a trade war. This is the case particularly if we see a degradation in the NAFTA talks appearing over the next few weeks.  A sign pointing in a different direction has also appeared though, and that relates to the earlier probe on steel which the President launched. There has still been no announcement as to the results of this probe, and this is likely because the announcement has been held back as it would be damaging to trade with China. How to handle this will definitely require some diplomacy, as President Trump will not want to make outright enemies of the Chinese.   

Free Trade on Trial - What are the Lessons for Economists?

This election season in the US there has been an extraordinary and disturbing trend at work: vilifying free trade as a "job killer". The main front runners in both political parties in this Primary season are all apparently questioning free trade as a way to garner more votes.

So although in January 2015 Ted Cruz said "I am a full-throated advocate of free trade. Free trade benefits America, produces jobs,

produces economic growth and it is good for our country", he has gone on record saying that he is not in favor of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).  The front-runner on the Republican side, Donald Trump says that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a "terrible, terrible deal", and that he would cancel most of the existing trade deals as well as building a wall between the US and Mexico. And lastly, John Kasich has said that "I think that we have, in some ways, been saps. We can't have people coming in here and dumping stuff and destroying our jobs in this country. That's where I grew up! I grew up with steel workers."

On the democratic side, Hillary Clinton also opposes the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), But probably the most vehement anti free trader in the Primaries has been Bernie Sanders. He has gone on record saying that "Let’s be clear: the TPP is much more than a “free trade” agreement. It is part of a global race to the bottom to boost the profits of large corporations and Wall Street by outsourcing jobs; undercutting worker rights; dismantling labor, environmental, health, food safety and financial laws; and allowing corporations to challenge our laws in international tribunals rather than our own court system".

So what is going on here? Why is one of the biggest trends of the last 3 decades now being questioned and vilified by our leading politicians? Well, there is plenty of analysis in the press (see here in the FT and here in the New York Times, for example), but we need to ask 4 basic questions here:

i) why is free (or freer) trade regarded as a good thing by economists?
ii) why is there now so much opposition to free trade among politicians?
iii) what would happen if we implement some of the suggestions coming from both ends of the political spectrum?
iv) what lessons can we as economists learn from this?

So first, why is free trade regarded as a good thing by economists?. As I explain in my Principles classes, the Ricardian theory of trade says if you have a comparative (relative) advantage in doing something, you should specialize and focus on doing exactly that thing. The unfortunate part of free trade is that if you don't have a comparative advantage in a specific good or service, then the theory says you should let someone else do it and import the good or service. The obvious implication is that people will lose their jobs. And that means that as barriers to free trade have come down over the past 60 years that we will lose jobs in certain industries. But that is not the end of the story - trade theory goes on to point out that in any country the gainers from trade could compensate those with losses from free trade, and we would still be better off. It is this second part that doesn't get taught in the textbooks or emphasized enough.

But what does this mean exactly? It means that from a macro perspective, the gains coming from the industries that can take advantage of comparative and expand to dominate international markets will make more income for the country than the loss in income from declining industries which will eventually be eliminated. Of course, that is the idea behind some of the government "adjustment programs" which usually accompany free trade deals: the government provides money to help workers transition out of an industry where the country does not have a comparative advantage into an industry where the country does have a comparative advantage. This extra transition spending should be temporary, as the dynamic adjustment to a new free trade deal causes workers to move from one industry to another. That is the theory at least.

So now we can answer the second question: why is there now so much opposition to free trade among politicians? One of the UK's leading politicians of the 1980s, Norman Tebbit coined an unfortunate phrase relating to the sectorally unemployed: "on yer bike". What he meant was simply if there isn't any work where you currently live, move to where there is work. The problem with this as relates to the economic theory is that workers often do not like to move - and particularly in a country as big as the US. The loss of social networks established over years, the uprooting of children from schools that they like, often the loss of property values as major parts of certain states see everyone trying to sell at once if the town or city is not industrially diversified, and the different cultural norms in different parts of the country, are all good reasons why we observe inertia in labor mobility. And much of this loss of jobs has come because by and large the US does not have a comparative advantage in manufacturing - that sector has been in long term decline, as it has in many developed countries.

If States are not industrially diversified, there is no doubt that there will be pain - hence the so-called "rust belt" in the central US States, the fisheries in the Atlantic provinces in Canada, the dockyards of Glasgow in Scotland, and the garment industries of North Carolina are all good examples. This pain is clearly one of the festering scars of free trade policy in advanced economies around the world. So if you are a politician campaigning in these States where there has been a decline in specific industries, it is natural that you'll get votes if you oppose free trade - so politicians such as Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton all know that if they are to have a chance of winning in these States they need to argue against free trade, and so they do. 

This leads into the third question. Donald Trump has advocated rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP - which I regard as a coalition type free trade deal against the emergent trading might of China), and said he would raise tariffs by 45% against all goods coming in from China and other countries that he deems to be unfair. I am assuming that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) with Europe will also be on the ropes too, Bernie Saunders has also said that he would only do "fair trade" deals, where this is defined as trade where wages and environmental standards are roughly equivalent to those in the US. That implies that Saunders would be against TPP, but would actually be in favor of T-TIP. But it implies that a Saunders Presidency would see international trade collapse with the developing world ( - what a lot of economists call "North-South" trade).  Either of these two scenarios are not good for US economic prospects, as it implies that free trade deals which the US stands to benefit from, would possibly not come to pass, and also that we will see other countries erecting trade barriers against our goods and services.  

What lessons can economists (and the general public) draw from this?  

First, I think that from a theoretical standpoint we need to expand our proselytizing about free trade to make politicians and the general public understand better where the economic argument comes from, and how it needs to come as a complete package rather than just a narrow focus on the benefits. What we have failed to do as economists is recognize the costs, and how best to mitigate those costs. 

Second, what can we do in the policy realm?  It should mean that any free trade deal needs to come with a whole raft of moving grants and loans, retraining grants and loans, and pension and Social Security "top-ups" for those laid-off workers who are deemed to be close to retirement age). But I hear my economist friends saying - "but that might make the international rearrangement of production no longer economic, so that comparative advantage cannot fully operate.  Well my argument would be "so be it".  These are people's lives you are talking about, and government and business instigated policy changes should come with transitional arrangements that protect those that are most vulnerable.

Third, we need to be much more aware of the regional industrial specialization that occurs in the US when making trade deals - perhaps States could be given notice that a free trade deal will happen and then some kind of fiscal transfer can be arranged to help it generate new industries within it's borders. In this sense regional policy and trade policy are much more related than economists have recognized in the past.  

And lastly, and probably the most important lesson that can be learned from this, is that economists need to be much more vocal about these public policy issues, and suggest ways in which the well-being of all our citizens can be improved, or at least maintained.