World

Videos of triumphant doctors in Wuhan removing their protective equipment flooding social media this week symbolized the end of the fight against COVID-19 in the city where the outbreak began. With travel restrictions set to lift April 8 in Wuhan and wider Hubei province, and domestically transmitted cases of the virus near zero, life for China’s 1.4 billion residents is getting back to a new normal.

It took COVID-19 several weeks to mass migrate from China to Europe, but the continent is now awash in the virus. The pandemic has fully arrived in Italy and Spain. Other nations await the disease, hoping to slow its spread. It will kill many Europeans. It also might kill the European Union, at least the...

After some fits and starts, Joe Biden has emerged from a crowded field as the front‐runner for the Democratic nomination. There’s still some politicking left to go, but let’s talk about what a Biden trade policy might look like if he is elected president. In this article, I’ll consider three things: (1) What Biden...

The Covid 19 outbreak set the field, but the direct cause of oil’s crash last week reads from an old playbook. WTI has been on a freefall losing over $16 in two days, prompting a wider stock market sell off that created another Black Monday as the Dow dove 7% in a single day. The […]

I’ve spent several weeks confined to my apartment building in Jinan, a few hours south of Beijing, where I work as an English teacher. I’ve dared to venture out only twice: to the grocery store, where a masked employee checked my temperature upon entrance, despite ominous warnings from coworkers to avoid stores as possible sites...

The Maoist totalitarian state is being reborn in China under Xi Jinping, who is constructing a personality cult akin to that which surrounded the late “Great Helmsman.” Xi is determined to strengthen his and the Chinese Communist Party’s authority. However, the response of the Chinese government to the COVID-19 virus has undermined the CCP’s credibility...

A novel feature of the Trump administration’s “Phase 1” trade deal with China announced December 13, is that it would require China to increase its purchase of US goods and services by a total of $200 billion in the next two years. It’s a demand that, even if met, won’t accomplish President Donald Trump’s China-trade..

The immigration debate in the United States has obscured a host of neglected legislative issues. The anti-immigrant sentiment in the nation belabors the notion that immigration is an issue that only encompasses illegal border crossings. Rather, legal immigration impacts economic considerations as a net gain, perhaps well beyond the potential economic burdens of illegal migrant […]

Announcing his intentions to hit all remaining imports from China with tariffs, President Trump is now all-in on the trade war. This doesn’t bode well for Americans’ wallets, bilateral relations or the global economy.

U.S. and Chinese negotiators may soon reach terms to ease the tariffs that have been uprooting supply chains and straining relations. That would be welcome news to beleaguered farmers, manufacturers, and consumers. But unless that deal compels Beijing to end its predatory technology practices and discriminatory commercial policies, détente will give way to intensified sanctions, […]

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump vowed to strengthen enforcement of existing trade rules and negotiate better trade deals than his predecessors had. With his national security tariffs on steel and aluminum, his safeguard tariffs on washing machines and solar components, his broad trade war with China, and the looming specter of new barriers for […]

In President Trump’s reckoning, international trade is a zero-sum game with distinct winners and losers. Exports are Team America’s points. Imports are the foreign team’s points. The trade account is the scoreboard, and the deficit on that scoreboard proves that the home team is losing at trade. Accordingly, the president considers blocking imports and promoting […]

With six months and counting before the UK-EU divorce becomes official, Britons understandably are frustrated by the absence of post-Brexit clarity. Genuine concern, lingering misgivings about the referendum, and a series of government missteps have invited justified criticism, but also heaps of hyperbole and fear-mongering from politicians and opinion leaders across the ideological spectrum.

Trade casualties are mounting in both the United States and abroad as President Trump’s tariffs against imports from China, as well as from our allies, begin to be felt. Earlier we reported that U.S. steel producing industries, which employ approximately 140,000 workers, likely would benefit at the expense of the much greater U.S. steel-using industries...

The Council on Foreign Relations points out that as a result of The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) regional trade increased sharply over the treaty’s first two decades, “from roughly $290 billion in 1993 to more than $1.1 trillion in 2016. Cross-border investment has also surged, with U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in...

When exporting, importing, investing abroad or establishing strategic alliances with foreign producers, it’s critical to understand the hidden risks. If not, an unethical supplier can result in endless lawsuits and poor market opportunities can generate tremendous losses. On the other hand, correctly grasping foreign market wants, needs and abilities can lead to great success...

Late last month, the Trump administration “self-initiated” antidumping and countervailing duty investigations of imports of aluminum sheet from China. Reactions from media, social media, and the Chinese government seem to suggest these measures are especially provocative, pushing Washington and Beijing even closer to the brink of a trade war.

“Designed by Apple in California; Assembled in China” are the words engraved on the back of Apple’s ubiquitous iPods, iPads, and iPhones. Might that soon change? Foxconn, the Taiwan-headquartered company that does Apple’s assembling in China, announced last week that it will invest up to $10 billion in production facilities in Wisconsin.

Scapegoating trade for problems real and imagined has been a prominent part of American electoral politics for 25 years. So, during the campaign, when candidate Donald Trump referred to the North American Free Trade Agreement as “the worst trade deal ever negotiated,” his rhetoric wasn’t especially alarming.

Trade frictions are nothing new to the U.S.-China relationship. Over the years they’ve ebbed and flowed, but were managed with enough deft to avoid major meltdowns. That seems likely to change under President Donald Trump, an economic nationalist who sees trade as a zero-sum game and the United States emerging “the winner” of a trade […]