Hand me Another Tariff – Berto enters the trade war

Hand me Another Tariff – Berto enters the trade war

Was the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the USA the war you are having when you are not having a war?

Many are saying Trump’s ‘trade war’ with China is just that – the war you are having when you are not having a war.

According to Wikipedia, Graham Allison, in his book Destined for War (2017), proposed the concept of Thucydides’s Trap. It is based on the theory that when an established political power fears a rising foreign power, war is an inescapable outcome.

It does not always have to be a military conflict. It can be a war involving trade. Certainly, there are casualties on both sides.

“Allison’s term follows the ancient text History of the Peloponnesian War, in which Thucydides wrote, “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta”.”

The term appeared in a paid opinion advertisement in The New York Times on April 6, 2017, on the occasion of U.S. President Donald Trump‘s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which stated, “Both major players in the region share a moral obligation to steer away from Thucydides’s Trap.”

RT Media has been following the trade war closely, particularly in relation to its impact on printing consumables made in China that get exported to the USA. For more than a year, the news about an end to the Sino-U.S. trade has fluctuated weekly, often daily, between optimism and pessimism, with a resolution one day imminent and the next remote. You can download a paper on the topic and read more: click here.

As Berto muses, Keep firing more and more tariffs.

Berto #68: October 5, 2018: Hand me Another Tariff – Berto enters the trade war

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Last month’s Berto cartoon: Opportunities Found in China – Berto gets a handful

Who is Berto? And where can you can see more of his work?  Click here.