Right-Wing Populism’s Impact On American Trade Policy

In 2017,Trump launched "anti-subsidy and anti-dumping" sanctions against China,which is evaluated as the largest,most extensive and most intense in 50 years.Most concern for International Relations scholars is whether the trade war with China indicates American government’s China strategy has reached a historical and permanent shift from the "Engagement strategy" since last century.This paper argues that Trump’s trade war with China is not a single case,but one of the his administration’s general trade policy shifted from open to conservative.The causal mechenism of this dramatic change is the prevailing rightwing populism rising from the US,which resorts to a third party to be responsible for its domestic inequality while profoundly shaped by neo-liberalism since 1970 s.Based on the theoretical logic of right-wing populism,this paper deduces a set of framework to explain the specific case of American trade war against China;meanwhile,evaluate the intepretation by comparing effect both from the economic side and public opinion side on this case,which implies that Trump’s trade war with China is more likely to be a "buy vote" stratey rather than an attempt to change the bilateral relationship.