Professor Roger Alford talked on Donald Trump's proposed trade war with China

• Author: PAN Xuenan
• Pages: 743-744

FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA

VOL. 11 DECEMBER 2016 NO. 4

DOI 10.3868/s050-005-016-0043-0

ACADEMIC NEWS

PROFESSOR ROGER ALFORD TALKED ON DONALD TRUMP’S PROPOSED TRADE

WAR WITH CHINA

On the morning of May 24, Professor Roger Alford, from the Law School of

University of Notre Dame, was invited to give a talk at the Common Law Lecture Series

sponsored by the Centre for Common Law of Renmin Law School. His talk, entitled

“Donald Trump’s Proposed Trade War with China,” drew a broad spectrum of audience

ranging from trade law scholars, comparative law experts and political scientists.

A faculty member of Renmin University, Associate Professor GUO Rui hosted the

lecture, along with Professor DING Xiangshun and Professor HAN Liyu, who are

renowned scholars in trade law and comparative law. Professor Alford started with a

general introduction on the 2016 presidential election of the United States. He explained

that his main concern was the free trade policy, which has been embraced by the U.S. for

75 years, might be changed by this presidential election. On the Democratic side, Bernie

Sanders consistently opposes free trade agreements, and Republican candidate Donald

Trump fundamentally distrusts basic tenets of free trade. Influenced by the two

competitors, Hillary Clinton currently has no choice but to shift from an advocate for free

trade to an opponent, at least in front of the public. But as Professor Alford suggested,

there is a good Chese that Hillary will go back to follow her free trade instincts if she gets

elected.

Professor Alford placed great emphasis on the trade relationship between the United

States and China. Today, The U.S. imports $470 billion from China compared to $1.1

billion in 1980, and exports $110 billion to China compared to $3.8 billion in 1980. China

is the largest importer for the United States since 2007. As a result, although there are still

some issues to be resolved between the U.S. and China, these two countries are

undoubtedly much more closely related today and rely on each other more heavily with

regard to trade.

In this context, one can easily see that Trump’s idea of a trade war is ludicrous and

uninformed: The first problem is that from Trump’s perspective, trade is almost only

about jobs and trade deficits, instead of pursuing more fundamental purposes, including

reducing poverty, increasing standards of living or importing better products that benefit

the consumers thus eventually creating wealth. To use an example of basketball game for

illustration, Trump has paid too much attention to “free throws” without the awareness of

the importance of field goals and three pointers. In fact, free trade is like technological

development, reducing some jobs but creating new ones. As a whole, it creates wealth for