US-China trade disputes and its impact on ASEAN

Abstract

This paper examines trade frictions between US and China and if these have an effect on ASEAN’s trade ties with the former countries. Since the early 1990s, there have been friction between these two countries whereby US blamed the Chinese government for its trade deficits and pointed to low value of Yuan compared with USD as a culprit. Though former US presidents had taken a softer approach in dealing with China on this issue, current president Donald Trump has been unrelenting and has taken a hardline stance. Trump’s presidential campaign was founded on correcting US economic imbalances and he fulfilled his promises by imposing high tariffs on Chinese products. The sticky point is whether this policy will achieve its objectives since there are many US companies operating in China and who export their products in significant quantities to their home market. This trade friction will undoubtedly have spill over effects on the trading partners of both countries, namely ASEAN.

Keywords:

• US
• China
• ASEAN
• trade war
• tariffs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohamed Aslam

Mohamed Aslam is a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He hold two PhD degress, i.e. PhD in international macroeconomics (Post-Keynesian) from the University of Malaya and PhD in regional economic integration from the Hiroshima City University, Japan. His main areas of research are trade policy, regional economic integration, economic growth, ASEAN economy, international macroeconomics and Post-Keynesian economics.