America played a huge role in the creation of the international trade system that governs economic life today. We frequently cite the existence of that system, and its success in bringing increased prosperity to the world over the last 75 years, as the difference between us and the rule-breaking Chinese. Trump did his best to cripple the system, however, and Biden is largely following his lead. It looks like hypocrisy, doesn’t it?
The problem is that the system was not designed to deal with a huge country that openly views its corporations not as independent actors, but as agents of an aggressive, autocratic state. Nevertheless, American violations of the letter and the spirit of trade law need to be limited to transactions which have a clear relationship to national security in order to maintain our moral standing in the rest of the world. Regulations on chip manufacturing meet that standard, but most tariffs do not.