China

The Costs of Tariffs in the U.S.-China Trade War

By ·May 14, 2019
University of California, Davis

The Issue:

The tariff war imposes costs on U.S. consumers, firms, and farms. As trade tensions between the United States and China escalate with increasing tariff rates and a broadening set of goods subject to fees, costs of the spat are likely to rise. But determining who bears the bulk of these costs can be complicated.

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China’s Exchange Rate Policy (VIDEO)

By and ·May 6, 2019
The Fletcher School, Tufts University and The Brookings Institution
This conversation was recorded on December 13, 2018.

The Issue:

China has been moving from an exchange rate regime in which the yuan was pegged to the U.S. dollar to one in which the relationship between the two currencies is somewhat looser. But the path to this transformation has been bumpy. The difficulties

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Is China Weakening the Yuan to Fight U.S. Tariffs?

By ·August 7, 2018
Fletcher School, Tufts University

The Issue:

The Chinese currency has declined in value against the dollar by over 7 percent since mid-May. This lowers the cost of Chinese exports to the United States and could help counteract the effect of United States tariffs that would make imports from China more expensive. The Trump administration has interpreted ...
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What is the Problem of Forced Technology Transfer in China?

By ·August 3, 2018
Carnegie Mellon University and Peterson Institute for International Economics

The Issue:

Much of the focus of the Trump administration's trade dispute with China has centered on the size of the U.S. bilateral trade deficit. Most economists agree that this focus is misdirected, and that the existence or size of bilateral trade deficits should not generally be a matter of concern or a target ...
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U.S. Trade Policy: Going it Alone vs. Abiding by the World Trade Organization

By and ·June 15, 2018
Harvard University and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

The Issue:

The World Trade Organization (WTO) administers a multilateral system that promotes world trade. The Trump administration has complained that the WTO is unfair to the United States, and seems to favor America acting outside WTO rules to induce other countries to enter into better deals with the U.S. Recent ...
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What Do We Learn from Bilateral Trade Deficits?

By and ·May 25, 2017
Harvard University and Fletcher School, Tufts University

The Issue:

The Trump administration proposes using United States’ trade deficits with its trading partners to gauge whether the trading relationship with that country is “fair.” An executive order signed on March 31 requires officials to produce an “omnibus” report naming U.S. trading partners with “significant” ...
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Import Limits on Steel and Aluminum: Protecting National Security or Protectionism?

By ·May 9, 2017
Robert M. La Follette School, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Issue:

The Trump Administration has proposed a number of trade related measures purportedly on the basis of national security. The first involves invoking a seldom-used provision of the trade law to investigate whether imposing import restrictions for steel and aluminum is justified by national security reasons. ...
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Is China a Non-Market Economy, and Why Does It Matter?

By ·April 12, 2017
Fletcher School, Tufts University

The Issue:

Under the legal structure of the World Trade Organization, the designation of China as a "non-market economy" allows its trading partners, including the United States, to use a special framework to determine whether China's exports are being sold at unfairly low prices and, if that is found to be the case, ...
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