Resources

This simulation was developed with support from the KU Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). It is designed as a scaffolded classroom assignment where the students can learn about what’s going on in the Trade War and also reflect on theoretical concepts about trade and investment politics. It is both a teaching tool and also a lab experiment to capture how ideological divides play out in domestic politics and international bargaining in the US-China trade war. The simulation has been successfully implemented at KU, UCSD, Princeton, Arkansas, and UBC.

US-China Trade War simulation: How-to Guide

Assignment #1 [two weeks prior]: Watch PBS Documentary: Trump's Trade War and share weekly articles on the discussion boards (2 points) Instructor should divide the class into teams of 4-6 (1-n) and assign each participant a briefing (A-F) in the following way: 

Team 1

USA: [Participant A1], [Participant B1], [Randomize A1, B1, or C1]

PRC: [Participant D1], [Participant E1], [Randomize D1, E1, or F1]

Each participant should have a unique participant number (ex. A1, E1) and each team should have a pro-engagement (A & D) and anti-engagement (B & E) participant PLUS a “wild card” participant with a randomly assigned briefing. 

Assignment #2 [one week prior]: Research the trade war from the perspective of your assignment interest group and submit 3-5 sources that support the position you have been assigned (3 points) Please write 1-2 sentences for each source explaining why it supports the interests you are assigned to represent in the briefing. 

Round 1: Domestic Politics [first class hour] - represent your assigned interests while working with your country team to write a position paper that outlines the asks and concessions for your country in these trade talks. Due 11/05 by the end of class. Instructor should administer pre-simulation survey.

Assignment #3: Work with your country team to write a policy memo (1000-1500 words) to analyze the political priorities of the other country and devise a strategy that your country should follow in the upcoming trade talks. Due 11/07 in class (5 points). Instructor should administer post-simulation survey.

Round 2: Bilateral Negotiations [second class hour] - represent your country and negotiate a joint statement that outlines what each country is willing to commit to. Due 11/07 by the end of class. Extra credit will be assigned to the individual who best represented their assigned interests on each team (+0.5 points) and to the team that achieves more of their interests as defined by their position paper (+0.5 points). 

Assignment #4: Work on your own to write a participant memoir (1500-2000 words) to explain and defend your role during these 2019 US-China Trade Talks. Due 11/21 in class (20 points). For this assignment, you should feel free to draw upon your notes/diary of your thoughts and actions, reference your team policy memo, and your research for all previous assignments. 

Here’s a link to a dropbox folder containing everything you’ll need to implement the simulation in your class at Berkeley. You’ll find both instructor resources (references to assign, template emails/instructions, evaluations, pedagogical statement etc) as well as student resources (most importantly: the briefing documents for each interest group). 

Materials: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/foxfsqb0gmmofnw/AABklV46pdfEmhXlfCfvGQaRa?dl=0\

More information: https://cte.ku.edu/zhang/2020

Kim, In Song, and Iain Osgood. "Firms in trade and trade politics." Annual Review of Political Science 22 (2019): 399-417.

Osgood, Iain. "Industrial fragmentation over trade: the role of variation in global engagement." International studies quarterly 61.3 (2017): 642-659.

McLean, Elena V., and Taehee Whang. "Designing foreign policy: Voters, special interest groups, and economic sanctions." Journal of Peace Research 51.5 (2014): 589-602.

Johns, Leslie, and Rachel Wellhausen. "Under one roof: Supply chains and the protection of foreign investment." American Political Science Review (2015).

Morgan, T. Clifton, Navin Bapat, and Yoshiharu Kobayashi. "Threat and imposition of economic sanctions 1945–2005: Updating the TIES dataset." Conflict Management and Peace Science 31.5 (2014): 541-558.

Majlesi, Kaveh, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson. "Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure." American Economic Review (2020).

Kleinberg, Katja B., and Benjamin O. Fordham. "The domestic politics of trade and conflict." International Studies Quarterly 57.3 (2013): 605-619.

Davis, Christina L., and Sophie Meunier. "Business as usual? Economic responses to political tensions." American Journal of Political Science 55.3 (2011): 628-646.

Osgood, Iain, and Jieun Lee. “Firms Fight Back: Production Networks and Corporate Opposition to the China Trade War.” APSA Pre-Prints (2020). 

Peterson, Timothy M. "Dyadic trade, exit costs, and conflict." Journal of Conflict Resolution 58, no. 4 (2014): 564-591.

Zeng, Ka. "Exit vs. Voice: Global Sourcing, Multinational Production, and the China Trade Lobby." Business and Politics (2021): 1-27. 

Barry, Colin M., and Katja B. Kleinberg. "Profiting from sanctions: Economic coercion and US foreign direct investment in third-party states." International Organization (2015): 881-912.

Tama, Jordan. "Forcing the President's Hand: How the US Congress Shapes Foreign Policy through Sanctions Legislation." Foreign Policy Analysis 16.3 (2020): 397-416.

Kim, Sung Eun, and Yotam Margalit. "Tariffs As Electoral Weapons: The Political Geography of the US–China Trade War." International Organization 75.1 (2021): 1-38.

Fetzer, Thiemo, and Carlo Schwarz. "Tariffs and politics: evidence from Trump’s trade wars." The Economic Journal 131.636 (2021): 1717-1741.

Gulotty, Robert, and Xiaojun Li. "Anticipating exclusion: Global supply chains and Chinese business responses to the Trans-Pacific Partnership." Business and Politics 22.2 (2020): 253-278.

Steinberg, David A., and Yeling Tan. "Public responses to foreign protectionism: Evidence from the US-China trade war." The Review of International Organizations (2022): 1-23.

Yeung, Eddy SF, and Kai Quek. "Relative Gains in the Shadow of a Trade War." International Organization (2022): 1-25.

Brutger, Ryan, Stephen Chaudoin, and Max Kagan. "Trade Wars and Election Interference." The Review of International Organizations (2022): 1-25.

Choi, Jaerim, and Sunghun Lim. "Tariffs, agricultural subsidies, and the 2020 US presidential election." American Journal of Agricultural Economics (2022).

Poh, Angela. "Sanctions with Chinese Characteristics." Sanctions with Chinese Characteristics. Amsterdam University Press, 2021.

Zhu, Boliang, Aubrey Waddick, Yilang Feng, and Angel Villegas-Cruz. "Firms Caught in Crossfire: International Stakes and Domestic Politics in Corporate Positioning on De-Globalization." APSA Conference Paper (2021). 

Choi, Bo-Young and Thuy Linh Nguyen, "Trade Diversion Effects of the US-China Trade War on Vietnam." SSRN Paper (2021). 

Huang, Yi, et al. "Trade networks and firm value: Evidence from the US-China trade war."  Available at SSRN (2019).

Mangini, Michael, "The Economic Coercion Trilemma and the Paradox of Self-Defeating Success." Working Paper (2021).  

Ritchie, Melinda N., and Hye Young You. "Trump and trade: Protectionist politics and redistributive policy." The Journal of Politics 83.2 (2021): 800-805.

Fajgelbaum, Pablo and Amit Khandelwal, "The Economic Impacts of the US-China Trade War." NBER Working Paper 29315 (2021). 

Chor, Davin, and Bingjing Li. Illuminating the effects of the US-China tariff war on China's economy. No. w29349. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2021.

Pablo Fajgelbaum, Pinelopi K. Goldberg, Patrick J. Kennedy, Amit Khandelwal, and Daria Taglioni "The US-China Trade War and Global Reallocations" (2021)

Myrick, Rachel. "Do External Threats Unite or Divide? Security Crises, Rivalries, and Polarization in American Foreign Policy." International Organization 75.4 (2021): 921-958.

Kim, Soo Yeon and Dylan Leong. "The US-China Trade War and Chinese Firms: Impact on Global Trade and Investment Networks." Working paper (2022).  

Lee, Jieun and Iain Osgood. "Protection Forestalled: When Firms Fight Tariffs in their Own Industry." Business and Politics (2022): 1-33.

Bulman, David. "Instinctive Commercial Peace Theorists? Interpreting American Views of the US–China Trade War." Business and Politics (2022): 1-33.

Zeng, Ka, et al. "Bilateral Tensions, the Trade War, and US–China Trade Relations." Business and Politics (2022): 1-31.

Schweinberger, Tanja. "Mass public opinions towards trade balances: Mercantilism 2.0." Business and Politics (2022): 1-33.

Lee, James and Richard Maher. "US economic statecraft and great power competition" Business and Politics (2022): 1-33.

Barry, Colin M. "Peace and conflict at different stages of the FDI lifecycle." Review of International Political Economy 25.2 (2018): 270-292.

Barry, Colin M. "Bringing the company back in: A firm-level analysis of foreign direct investment." International Interactions 42.2 (2016): 244-270.

Bown, Chad. "Four years into the trade war, are the US and China decoupling?" Peterson Institute of International Economics (2022). 

Bown, Chad. "How the United States marched the semiconductor industry into its trade war with China." East Asian Economic Review 24.4 (2020): 349-388.

Amiti, Mary, Stephen J. Redding, and David E. Weinstein. "The impact of the 2018 tariffs on prices and welfare." Journal of Economic Perspectives 33.4 (2019): 187-210.

Amiti, Mary, Stephen J. Redding, and David E. Weinstein. "Who's paying for the US tariffs? A longer-term perspective." AEA Papers and Proceedings. Vol. 110. 2020.

Caliendo, Lorenzo, and Fernando Parro. "Lessons from US-China Trade Relations." (2022).

Bellora, Cecilia, and Lionel Fontagné. "Shooting oneself in the foot? Trade war and global value chains." (2020).

Javorcik, Beata, et al. "Did the 2018 Trade War Improve Job Opportunities for US Workers?." (2022).

Yoon, Chungeun, and Jaehyuk Park. "The US-China Trade War and Firm Innovation." Available at SSRN 4314036 (2022).

Syropoulos, Constantinos, et al. "The Global Sanctions Data Base–Release 3: Covid-19, Russia, and Multilateral Sanctions." (2022).

Ding, Haoyuan, et al. "Valuation effects of the US–China trade war: The effects of foreign managers and foreign exposure." Journal of Economic Surveys 36.3 (2022): 662-683.

Cui, Chuantao, and Leona Shao-Zhi Li. "The effect of the US–China trade war on Chinese new firm entry." Economics Letters 203 (2021): 109846.

Chen, Tuo, Chang-Tai Hsieh, and Zheng Michael Song. "Non-tariff barriers in the us-china trade war". No. w30318. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2022.

Zheng, Jian, et al. "Effects of eliminating the US–China trade dispute tariffs." World Trade Review (2022): 1-20.

Zeng, Ka, Yingjie Xu, and Zhenzhen Xie. "Local sourcing embeddedness, manufacturing relocation, and firm attitudes toward the US-China trade war: A survey analysis of China-based MNC subsidiaries." Business and Politics (2023): 1-26.

Hsu, Jonathan, Zhi Li, and Jing Wu. "Keeping Your Friends Closer: Friend-shoring in Response to Regional Value Content Requirements." Available at SSRN 4246225 (2022).

Congressional Research Service. "U.S. Trade Policies and Economic Competition with China: Issues for Congress" (2022) 

Pearson, Margaret M., Meg Rithmire, and Kellee S. Tsai. "China's party-state capitalism and international backlash: From interdependence to insecurity." International Security 47.2 (2022): 135-176.

Bulman, David J. "The economic security dilemma in US-China relations." Asian Perspective 45.1 (2021): 49-73.

Freund, Caroline, et al. "US-China decoupling: Rhetoric and reality." VoxEU Column 31 (2023).

Cha, Victor D. "Allied decoupling in an era of US–China strategic competition." The Chinese Journal of International Politics 13.4 (2020): 509-536.

Katada, Saori N., Ji Hye Lim, and Ming Wan. "Reshoring from China: comparing the economic statecraft of Japan and South Korea." The Pacific Review (2023): 1-30.