Trade Wars with Trade Deficits

Trade imbalances significantly alter the welfare implications of tariffs. Using an illustrative model, we show that trade deficits enhance a country’s ability to alter its terms of trade, and thereby benefit from tariffs. Greater trade deficits imply higher optimal, or welfare maximizing, tariffs. We compute optimal unilateral and Nash equilibrium tariffs between the United States and China — the countries with the largest bilateral trade imbalance — using a multi-region, multi-sector applied general equilibrium model with service sectors and input-output linkages, a computationally complex task. We find the United States gains from such a trade war with China, albeit minimally.