How far will Trump's trade war go?

This year, the Trump administration's trade friction with China escalated. The US sped up the regular trade investigations such as countervailing, antidumping, and Section 337 investigations. At the same time, non-regular trade protection measures, such as Section 301, 201, and 232 investigations, global safeguard measures, and a reciprocal tax directed at trade partners, were also taken. The friction caused by these attempts to "change the imbalance in China-US trade" has become more serious.

Trump claims "America First", "fairness", "equality" and "reciprocity" are the reasons for his economic policy and trade protectionism. For more than a year since Trump became president, 94 items from more than 10 countries have been under "unfair trade" investigations, a sharp increase of 81 percent. At the beginning of 2018, the White House also listed China as a "focus" of 2018 US trade policy. All these underline Trump's belief that "China rebuilt itself with money drained out of the US", and points to a more aggressive trade policy.

Trump's aggressive trade policy bears three characteristics. First, after the "free trade" during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, and the "fair trade" of the Obama administration, the Trump administration has turned to trade sanctions, and even threatened its trade partners with a trade war, forcing them to have bilateral talks so as to obtain better deals in its favor, so-called "equal trade (interests)" and "reciprocal trade (interests)", through bargaining.