US Trade Policy Under Trump: Assessing the Unilateralist Turn

This DIIS report examines US trade policy during the first ten months of Donald Trump’s presidency, up to early November 2017. It identifies the main points of Trump’s trade policy and compares them to mainstream US trade policy since the 1970s. It then documents the extent to which they have been implemented to date, and the consequences that have followed. The report finds that Trump has already implemented his campaign pledges on trade to a large extent, but that many of the expectations accompanying them have so far not been fulfilled. This is less a matter of time, or the result of internal opposition, than it is of resistance from the US’s major trade partners. One possible outcome of this deadlock is an international trade war.