In the slow news period between Christmas and the new year, the Financial Times published a chart that graphically illustrated how the global trade in goods has changed since 2000.
Picturing the nations of the world either in red for China or blue for the US, it showed that in 2000 the US was the dominant goods exporter globally, other than to some parts of Africa and the Middle East. Two decades on, the comparable world trade map shows that the two nations’ roles in international trade have reversed and that red has eclipsed blue everywhere other than in North and Central America and the European Union.
What the FT’s diagram highlighted was why the US feels so threatened by China. It illustrated why in a belated bid to halt the US’s declining commercial pre-eminence, the Trump administration’s focus is relentlessly on using trade policy, punitive tariffs and sanctions to try to shore up the country’s manufacturing base and its older worker-heavy industries.
