Economic warfare: lessons from the US-China trade spat

经济战:中美贸易摩擦启示录

Money Talks from The Economist

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2025-05-16

44 分钟
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America and China have agreed to a 90-day truce of their month-long trade war, but the economic uncertainty has not yet ended. Beyond tariffs, the spat had begun spilling over into other areas, with China imposing a ban on the export of critical minerals designed to hobble American industries. Could global supply chains and financial systems be weaponised in a similar way? If so, could such actions further fragment the global economy to everyone's detriment? And what would stop economic warfare escalating into full-blown military conflicts? Hosts: Mike Bird and Ethan Wu. Guests: Edward Fishman of the Center on Global Energy Policy and Columbia University, and author of "Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare"; and Dan Wang, research fellow at Stanford's Hoover History Lab and author of "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future". Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.
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  • The Economist.

  • It's been another busy week in global trade.

  • I'm happy to report that we've made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks.

  • On Monday,

  • after a weekend of haggling at a lakeside residence at a Swiss ambassador to the UN in Geneva,

  • US Treasury Secretary Scott Besson emerged with some good news.

  • We have reached an agreement on a 90-day pause and substantially moved down the tariff levels.

  • Indeed,

  • America had slashed what had been a prohibitive 145% tariff on China to a more affordable 30%,

  • while China cut its own levies from 125% to 10%.

  • It was a welcome ceasefire in the trade war, and markets dutifully rallied.

  • Take a look at the Dow right now, up more than 940 points.

  • Investors are really breathing a big sigh of relief right now.

  • The S&P 500 is set to erase all of its post-liberation day losses.

  • So, crisis over?

  • Well, not quite.

  • First of all, this is only a 90-day pause.

  • After that, if there's no further deal, the tariffs will surge again.

  • And secondly, before last weekend's breakthrough,

  • the trade war had begun to escalate way beyond just tariffs,