Shigeyuki Abe, Kyoto University: This paper makes sense of the background of U.S. decision-making on trade policy in terms of interactions involving four Lobby Groups: the security-first Lobby Group 1; the stability-first Lobby Group 2; the prosperity-first Lobby Group 3; and the partnership-first Lobby Group 4. This analytical explanation justifies the title of the paper. The other parts of the paper analyze several important economic dimensions of the trade war.
The U.S.-China trade war affects not only the United States and China but other Asian countries. This is because China is the core country in global value chains (GVCs). Many Japanese multinational companies have now relocated their plants from China to other parts of Asia. One needs to understand the nature of GVCs to understand the impacts of the U.S.-China trade war. Many Asian countries are tightly linked to China by the GVCs.
Japan had successive trade frictions with the...