How should economists interpret current trade wars and the recent U.S. trade actions that have initiated them? This paper offers an interpretation of current U.S. trade actions that is at once more charitable and less forgiving than that typically offered by economic commentators. More...

This chapter describes the basic structure of international trade agreements as they exist in practice, explores theoretically the normative consequences of actual and alternative trade agreements, and offers some theoretically-based explanation for the structure of trade agreements....