Thomas W. Zeiler’s “Projecting China: Trade Engagement in Beijing’s Half Century,” chronicles the oscillations in US foreign economic policy for China from the Nixon to Biden administrations. Zeiler offers a focused study of a bilateral relationship predominantly through the lens of a multilateral free-trade theory known as the capitalist peace doctrine.[1] For nearly fifty years…
Tag: trade
Policy Series: Canada and Donald Trump: A Midterm Reality Check
As I noted the last time I took to this platform to express my views on the meaning of President Donald J. Trump for Canada’s relationship with the United States, there were at least a few reasons for optimism, amid the general sense of gloom and doom that descended upon Canadians in the immediate aftermath…
Policy Series: The Clash of Global Narratives
Donald Trump’s election will be “the biggest f**k-you ever recorded in human history,” predicted the film-maker Michael Moore in the summer of 2016.[2] He reminded his Midwestern audience that it was Trump who had the audacity to meet with CEOs of Ford Motor Company and warn them: if you move your factories to Mexico, I…
Policy Series: This is What Nationalism Looks Like
The H-Diplo/ISSF Policy Series asks, among other questions, what diplomatic history and international relations theory tell us about the future of the U.S. in the world. I attempt to answer from the historian’s side, by focusing on economic nationalism in the 1930s. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 represents the most famous case of trade protectionism…