Alan Deardorff talks trade relations in a March 22 Consumer Reports article by Octavio Blanco: “These products could get more expensive in a Trump trade war.”
Blanco describes the Trump Administration’s proposal to impose tariffs on products from China and interviews several economists for their reaction to the proposal.
“The move is the first step in addressing what the administration calls ‘China’s economic aggression,” writes Blanco, including China’s alleged stealing of U.S. intellectual property.
Deardorff, however, is skeptical that tariffs would help solve the United States’ trade problems with China, especially if tariffs are enacted without any other policy measures.
“It’s not clear what steps the administration is asking China to take, or what it would need to do to persuade the administration that its behavior had changed,” he says in the article.