Krugman: Trump won't start trade war, but he could lose it
The good news: I don’t think Donald Trump will cause a global trade war.
The bad news: The reason I say that is I believe that a trade war would be coming even if Trump had lost the election, largely because China is refusing to act like a responsible economic superpower. Unfortunately, Trump may be the worst possible person to guide U.S. policy through the turmoil that’s probably ahead.
He won’t be the reason we have a trade war, but he may well be the reason we lose it.
China is the greatest economic success story in history. It used to be very poor; there are still many people alive who remember the great famine of 1959-61. But after the reforms that began in 1978, its economy soared. Even now, China is only a middle-income country, with GDP per capita substantially lower than ours or in Western Europe. But China has a huge population, so by some measures it is now the world’s largest economy.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/krugman-trump-wont-start-trade-war-but-he-could-lose-it/