Interview: Could the Coronavirus Crisis Upend Trade with China?

Interview: Could the Coronavirus Crisis Upend Trade with China?

I appreciated the opportunity to be interviewed by Questrom School of Business, Boston University for this story on Sino – US relations, whose link is here.

Tensions were flaring between China and the United States even before coronavirus. But as COVID-19 ravaged the world, the two superpowers descended into outright bickering. President Donald Trump admitted he was “having a very hard time with China” in a May interview on Fox News and later mused about severing trade ties with the world’s second biggest economy. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned the US was pushing the countries toward a “new Cold War.” By late May, some analysts were suggesting the tough talk and drop in demand and manufacturing capacity in both countries could threaten the new US-China trade deal signed in January. By June, American concern over new Chinese rules relating to Hong Kong had ratcheted tensions higher still.

Questrom Senior Lecturer Gregory Stoller thinks it would be a mistake to let the relationship crumble. “If we were to sever ties,” he says, “China would lose access to a lot of tech components. From the US side, China grants us access to low-cost goods, and China happens to be our third largest export partner. There’s a lot to be lost on both sides of the ledger.”