|
Stephan M. Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor of Korea-Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Graduate School of International Relations and is the director of Korea-Pacific Program (KPP). He is the editor of the Journal of East Asian Studies (JEAS) and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Haggard has written extensively on the political economy of North Korea with Marcus Noland, including Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform (2007), Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights into North Korea (2011), and "Hard Target: Sanctions., Inducements and the Case of North Korea" (2017).
Contents [0:03-1:59] Q1: What role did trade play in the 2016 election? [2:00-3:55] Q2: What were the Trump administration’s trade policy priorities? [3:56-6:59] Q3: How did China become the major focus of Trump’s trade policy? [7:00 -10:05] Q4: How is the trade war linked to Trump’s wider foreign policy? [10:06-13:15] Q5: What are the prospects for a deal? [13:16-17:30] Q6: What would a deal look like? And what if there is no deal?
Summary Stephan Haggard, editor of the EAI Journal of East Asian Studies and professor at UC San Diego, provides his insights on the U.S.-China trade war and the prospects for a deal. He begins by discussing how trade policy has been a designated policy “focal point” for the Trump administration since the 2016 election, initially targeting various agreements including both NAFTA and the KORUS FTA. Yet increasingly with time, the U.S. has identified China as the “central focus” due to China’s ambitious domestic industrial policies that may potentially disrupt certain industries that the U.S. seeks to optimize for its own “race towards the frontier.” While President Trump faces pressure to reach a deal with China, there may be a “long delay in negotiations” due to the imminent election in 2020, as “a weak deal would be to (President Trump’s) disadvantage.”
Through our Smart Q&A series, the East Asia Institute (EAI) seeks to offer timely and in-depth analysis on current issues by conducting video interviews with domestic and international experts. EAI takes no institutional position on what is said in the interviews and they are solely the position of the interviewees. This summary was prepared by Sea Young Kim.
[Smart Q&A] The US-DPRK Summit and the Future of North Korea
|