In 2018, the US launched a trade war with China, an abrupt departure from its historical leadership in integrating global markets. By late 2019, the US had tariffed roughly $350 billion of Chinese imports, and China had retaliated on $100 billion US exports. Economists have used a diversity of...

We introduce an internal geography to the canonical model of international trade driven by comparative advantages to study the regional effects of external economic integration. The model features a dual-economy structure, in which locations near international gates specialize in export-oriented...