IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/b/wfo/wstudy/61914.html
   My bibliography  Save this book

Policy Brief: Trump's Trade Wars. Implications for the EU and China

Author

Listed:
  • Fritz Breuss
  • Elisabeth Christen

    (WIFO)

Abstract

Trump's trade wars hit a new dimension expanding from mini to global trade wars. They target sectors (e.g., aluminium and steel) for the protection of "national security" (according to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962) and countries (e.g., China) for unfair trade practices (according to Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974). Both legal instruments give the US President the power to impose sanctions and protective measures. Since Trump came in office, he has cancelled most multilateral agreements or projects the USA were previously involved (TTIP, TPP, NAFTA, Paris Climate Agreement, JCPoA). Whereas the US trade conflict with China escalated dramatically and could ultimately – beginning with 1 September 2019 as President Trump has threatened – affect all bilateral trade flows, the tensions with the EU are currently limited to aluminium and steel. However, a trade war with respect to cars could follow if no agreement on an US-EU FTA-light is reached, besides the agreement on increasing the share of duty-free imports of hormone-free beef from the USA, signed on 2 August 2019. We analyse the trade wars already underway (aluminium and steel; USA–China) and possible new conflicts (cars) and agreements (FTA-light) with two methods: 1. a static CGE model and 2. a global dynamic economic macro model. The comprehensive US trade war with China results in the biggest impact for the involved countries, followed by a possible car conflict and an FTA-light agreement.

Suggested Citation

  • Fritz Breuss & Elisabeth Christen, 2019. "Policy Brief: Trump's Trade Wars. Implications for the EU and China," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 61914, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wfo:wstudy:61914
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wifo.ac.at/wwa/pubid/61914
    File Function: abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baldwin, Richard & Venables, Anthony J., 2013. "Spiders and snakes: Offshoring and agglomeration in the global economy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 245-254.
    2. Redding, Stephen & Amiti, Mary & Weinstein, David, 2019. "The impact of the 2018 trade war on U.S. prices and welfare," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102619, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    4. Bown,Chad P. & Pauwelyn,Joost (ed.), 2010. "The Law, Economics and Politics of Retaliation in WTO Dispute Settlement," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521119979, September.
    5. Gabriel Felbermayr & Jasmin Katrin Gröschl & Inga Heiland, 2018. "Undoing Europe in a New Quantitative Trade Model," ifo Working Paper Series 250, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    6. Pablo D Fajgelbaum & Pinelopi K Goldberg & Patrick J Kennedy & Amit K Khandelwal, 2020. "The Return to Protectionism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(1), pages 1-55.
    7. Harald Oberhofer & Gerhard Streicher & Yvonne Wolfmayr, 2018. "Policy Brief: Der Handelsstreit zwischen der EU und den USA. Abschaffung von Autozöllen als Ausweg aus dem Konflikt?," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 61203.
    8. Ben Li & Penglong Zhang, 2016. "International Geopolitics," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 909, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 06 Feb 2017.
    9. Fritz Breuss, 2004. "WTO Dispute Settlement: An Economic Analysis of four EU-US Mini Trade Wars," WIFO Working Papers 231, WIFO.
    10. Ralph Ossa, 2014. "Trade Wars and Trade Talks with Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(12), pages 4104-4146, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fritz Breuss, 2020. "Pro-Globalization via FTAs in Times of COVID-19," WIFO Working Papers 617, WIFO.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thiemo Fetzer & Carlo Schwarz, 2021. "Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump’s Trade Wars," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(636), pages 1717-1741.
    2. Sascha Tobias Wengerek, 2020. "Share price reactions to tariff imposition announcements in the Trump era - An event study of the trade conflict," Working Papers Dissertations 59, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    3. Wolfgang Lechthaler & Mariya Mileva, 2021. "The Dynamic And Distributional Aspects Of Import Tariffs," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(1), pages 199-241, February.
    4. Ariel Weinberger & Qian Xuefeng & Mahmut Yaşar, 2021. "Export tax rebates and resource misallocation: Evidence from a large developing country," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(4), pages 1562-1608, November.
    5. Rasa Stasiukynaite, 2019. "Reordering international trade: what will it cost?," Bank of Lithuania Occasional Paper Series 27, Bank of Lithuania.
    6. Xavier Jaravel & Erick Sager, 2018. "What are the Price Effects of Trade? Evidence from the U.S. and Implications for Quantitative Trade Models," Economic Working Papers 506, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    7. Sanyal, Anirban, 2023. "Caught in the Crossfire: How Trade Policy Uncertainty Impacts Global Trade," EconStor Preprints 272825, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    8. Lionel Fontagné & Houssein Guimbard & Gianluca Orefice, 2019. "Product-Level Trade Elasticities," Working Papers 2019-17, CEPII research center.
    9. Felbermayr, Gabriel & Sandkamp, Alexander, 2020. "The trade effects of anti-dumping duties: Firm-level evidence from China," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    10. Michael Funke & Adrian Wende, 2023. "The US–China Phase One trade deal: An economic analysis of the managed trade agreement," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(2), pages 758-786, May.
    11. Lashkaripour, Ahmad, 2021. "The cost of a global tariff war: A sufficient statistics approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    12. Mei, Yuan, 2020. "Sustainable cooperation in international trade: A quantitative analysis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    13. Miaojie Yu, 2020. "China-US Trade War and Trade Talk," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-981-15-3785-1, December.
    14. Peter H Egger & Jiaqing Zhu, 2020. "The US–Chinese trade war: an event study of stock-market responses," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 35(103), pages 519-559.
    15. Inga Heiland, 2017. "Five Essays on International Trade, Factor Flows and the Gains from Globalization," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 74.
    16. Martin Braml & Gabriel Felbermayr & Wolfgang Weiß & Fritz Breuss & Christoph Scherrer & Christoph Herrmann & Caroline Glöckle & Benjamin Jung & Tim Krieger & Laura Renner & Bernd Lange, 2018. "Handelskrieg und seine Folgen: Ist die WTO am Ende?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 71(11), pages 03-29, June.
    17. Jaravel, Xavier & Sager, Erick, 2019. "What are the price effects of trade? Evidence from the US for quantitative trade models," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103402, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Jungran Cho & Emma Kyoungseo Hong & Jeongho Yoo & Inkyo Cheong, 2020. "The Impact of Global Protectionism on Port Logistics Demand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-17, February.
    19. Yuko Imura, 2023. "Reassessing Trade Barriers with Global Production Networks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 77-116, December.
    20. Alessandro Barattieri & Matteo Cacciatore, 2023. "Self-Harming Trade Policy? Protectionism and Production Networks," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 97-128, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wfo:wstudy:61914. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Florian Mayr (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wifooat.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.