Are trade wars “good, and easy to win,” as President Donald Trump put it last year? Most mainstream economists and foreign policy analysts answer with a resounding “no.” Citing dire analogies such as the Great Depression and Pearl Harbor, they denounce Trump’s trade policy as ignorant toward the principles of free-trade economics, and fraught with security risks. Both the United States and China will lose, critics warn.
Yet a more thorough review of the historical record reveals a winning playbook for the White House, provided that it devises clear, limited aims it deems achievable through targeted measures and negotiations, and avoids presenting China’s leadership with a binary choice of absolute, humiliating surrender or forceful, even violent retaliation.
