The Importance of Diplomacy in Globalized Countries like China and the United States

The Trade War between the United States and China

The two largest economies in the world have been involved in a trade war that has mainly developed through the imposition of tariffs on some products. Those economies are the United States and China, the latter is a country whose growth spurt is “remarkable for its geographic spread as well as its speed and longevity” (Brandt, 2008). the interests that the country has caused in economists and businessman is “driven both by its large quantitative importance as an exporter of manufactured goods and by the paucity of natural experiments in international trade” (2016). The international opinion points to the fact that “China thrives like no one else, and many eyes, especially of an economic nature, are on Beijing” (Schmidt, 2006).

To understand the actors involved in the trade war, it is necessary to consider  four levels of analysis. The first is the individual level, in which the war is presented as an “exclusive product of the measures that President Trump has taken, without consulting the United States Congress, against China and other business partners” (Agosin, 2019). According to Trump’s logic, “if I win, you lose; there is no scenario in which we can both win” (Baute, 2019). For him, there is not cooperative negotiation and there is always a competition in which “the negotiator puts results before relation. Therefore, he uses tactics that allow him to achieve his objectives before the opposite” (Ponti, 2002).

The second level is a group where we find the Democratic and Republican political parties, whose ideological divides – which characterize voters according to their race and education – have also widened, notably as a shift of less-educated whites towards Republican candidates and policy positions (Autor, 2017). One of the representatives of this party is Donald Trump. He has spread an electoral message of the dissatisfaction of the American middle sectors with the effects caused by globalization. That is why he “blah» es the commerce with China of such evils» (R»sales, 2019). Most people who are part of this party support Trump’s measures.

At the third level, the state one, the United States has always tended to be one of the most reliable and most stable countries in terms of politics and economics. Therefore, it seeks to defend its position and interests against growing economies such as China, which has the objective of achieving hegemony worldwide. That is why “the North American global strategy is perceived as an attempt to maintain and strengthen the unipolar structure of the world” (Bustos, 2019) who exerts its influence as a superpower. In essence, the United States has both the instruments to start and end an international conflict and the capacity to affect less developed countries such as Colombia.

The system-level deals with the impact of the economic war in the world because globalization has fostered  economic growth and the modernization of diverse sectors globally. However, it has also generated changes and new social tensions in the national and international distribution of resources (Ortiz, 2018). There are adverse effects in different countries since there is too much uncertainty, currencies are fluctuating and the financial conditions of companies have changed, because “there is a 15% decrease in the profits of US companies, which correlate with the increase in corporate debt and in turn causes the same effect in other countries” (International Monetary Fund, 2018), affecting the productive sectors and the economy of their inhabitants.