By Patrick Watson via Iris.xyz
We have a temporary truce in the trade war.
No one is quite sure if it will last, especially financial markets. After a short-lived rally, they saw little to celebrate in the latest Trump-Xi meeting.
The US and China have serious disputes. And I think tariffs are the wrong tool to solve them. So I’m not optimistic this break will accomplish much either. We’ll see.
Have you noticed all the war-like metaphors? We talk about trade war, ceasefires, weapons, battlefields, casualties, victory, defeat. The terms seem to fit, at least symbolically.
Trade war isn’t real war. But like real war, it has costs and hurts people, even if it ultimately achieves the goal.
Before we intensify this trade war with China, we should consider those costs.
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