June 19, 2018
Since Donald Trump has apparently discovered that the US imports more than it exports from China, we can put tariffs on more goods than China can. This means that China has to look to other measures to counter Trump’s trade war. Most coverage of this issue has neglected to mention China’s strongest alternative measure.
The nuclear option, in this case, would be to stop honoring US patents and copyrights. This would be hugely costly to US corporations, especially if they began to export items, like prescription drugs, to the rest of the world. This would likely violate WTO rules, but I suspect China will care about violating WTO rules as much as Trump does.
Anyhow, given this can mean massive savings on drugs and other items for billions of people and a big hit to shareholders in Apple, Pfizer, Microsoft and other high-flying companies, it would go far towards reversing the upward redistribution of income. Like Trump said, it’s easy to win a trade war.
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