Footnote 4 American trade negotiators specifically choose these products because their industries are politically influential in Europe, maximizing political leverage, but also because they did not constitute a major part of the average American consumers’ purchasing basket. For decades, the United States has strategically placed tariffs on specialty food products like cheese, wine, and sparkling water to gain leverage in trade negotiations with Europe. While the Trump trade war provides an important recent example, PTTR is not a new phenomenon. For example, Chinese tariffs targeted products manufactured in the home districts of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Footnote 2 Some retaliatory tariffs also sought to inflict political pain through non-electoral channels by applying leverage on key policymakers. Foreign tariffs were particularly painful for exports produced in battleground states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Footnote 1 Other shots in the trade war targeted contested swing states that were viewed as pivotal for Republicans in the 20 elections. For instance, China’s retaliation focused heavily on agricultural products, such as soybeans, that are produced in pro-Trump strongholds. Some salvoes in the trade war targeted Trump’s base of support in conservative states. PTTR against the United States targeted products produced in specific locations with the intent to maximize political consequences for President Trump and his Republican allies. While all economic statecraft is political to a certain degree, the economic pain of these sanctions appeared to be targeted in such a way as to maximize the resulting political pain, especially through partisan electoral channels. The trade war began in early 2018 with the United States imposing tariffs on washing machines and dishwashers from Asian countries, and quickly escalated and expanded to myriad products and countries as the United States and its trading partners exchanged repeated rounds of retaliatory tariffs.Īpart from its magnitude, a central feature of the trade war was how tariffed goods were selected for political reasons-a phenomenon we refer to as politically-targeted trade retaliation (PTTR). The trade war initiated by Donald Trump was one of the largest shocks to the international system since the Great Recession.
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