Blog Theories of Power

Justin Patera
Mr. Roddy
GPHC
9/29/19
China & United States Trade War
Earlier this month, the United States and China have imposed a number of tariffs on one another which led to a trade war between the two superpowers that has been ongoing for the past year. Essentially this trade war started because of unfair trade practices according to President Donald Trump. Among those unfair practices were; the growing trade deficit, the theft of intellectual property, and the forced transfer of American technology to China. The goal of the United States was ultimately to use these tariffs to force China to address/change these unfair trade practices. This did not work. China retaliated by placing tariffs on the United States and this has been a recurring issue since last year. In the process the two superpowers relationship has reiterated greatly leaving both countries at odds. However, both countries are supposed to continue talking in search of a resolution.
This is both a liberal and realist approach. Each country has used the sovereignty it has (globally) to their advantage by waging this trade war. Most other countries in the world would not be able to have such a war because of their size and lack of international connections. Waging a war like this could potentially leave them weak and unable to “self sustain” like in the case of Iran in 2012 when the country was left to fend for itself as it lost the support of the U.S. and the E.U. However, being that these two countries (U.S. & China) are as large as they are and have such great international recognition and power they can have this war without completely destroying their economies. This is not to say that pieces of each country's economy are not affected, they are, just not in the same destructive manner that another country's economy might be. As far as the liberalist theory goes, we see this in the attempted negotiations the two countries have had over the course of the past year. While they haven't found a solution each country still works to resolve this conflict. 

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