United States President Donald Trump has taken a radically different approach to trade than his predecessors leading to a rise in American protectionism. Trump has launched a series of unilateral moves, the most recent being increasing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on national security grounds.

Trump has put together a team of trade hawks that have sneered at the multilateral trading system. Perhaps the most protectionist actions proposed by the team so far is the plan to impose tariffs on US$60 billion worth of Chinese imports. More protectionist actions are likely.

… Pradumna B. Rana is associate professor and coordinator of the International Political Economy Programme in the Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Xianbai Ji is a PhD candidate at RSIS holding the Nanyang President’s Graduate Scholarship. An earlier version appeared as a Council of Councils Global Memo, an initiative of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Click here to view the full article