At Fortune just two paragraphs of Alan Wolff’s post on “What’s Next for America’s Trade Policy With China?” sums it up:
U.S. concerns include theft of trade secrets, counterfeiting, inadequate protection of intellectual property, online piracy, industrial policies that promote domestic goods at the expense of U.S. products, subsidies, discriminatory product standards, the dumping of excess capacity, and restricted access for American services, according to a report that the US Trade Representative released last month, which included a 20 page chapter detailing America’s trade problems with China.
and
What should not be done is for the U.S. to turn a blind eye to trade-distorting practices in order to induce China to act as a responsible stakeholder on security and foreign policy issues. This is a current issue because of the President’s tweet this week.
I can’t even imagine a fair and equitable trade relationship between the United States and China or even how such a thing would come about. Not only do the Chinese authorities prefer the status quo in the absence of a robust system of civil law in China their imposing such a system would be very difficult if not completely impossible.
But American consumers like the status quo, too. They like the low prices even if China’s practices siphon away U. S. industrial capacity. One of Reagan’s wisecracks comes to mind. Recession is when your neighbor is out of a job. Depression is when you’re out of a job. As long as the present situation doesn’t threaten their own jobs most Americans will just accept the loss of jobs here and productive capacity here and continue shopping at WalMart.
I think that the U. S. should just estimate the cost of China’s bad behavior to American industries, impose a tariff in that amount on China’s goods, and let the chips fall where they may. I said that ten years ago and it’s just as true now. The chance of that happening is roughly zero.
