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近日，我校外国语学院、全球治理与法律英语研究中心主任陈海明博士在《中国日报》（英文）理论版显要头条位置发表理论性文章“Tariff barriers will lead nowhere”（在纸质版和网络版同时发行）。该文对中美贸易纠纷问题从经济学和国际法学角度进行了深度分析评论，指出一旦贸易战爆发，将对美国国内社会带来严峻的问题，影响普通美国人的生活，同时将严重影响特朗普总统的票仓；追求贸易顺差、利用关税壁垒制造贸易纠纷本质上属于以邻为壑的“重商主义（mercantilism）,严重违反WTO原则，践踏国际经贸领域的法治原则；该文分析了中美贸易顺差的多种原因，指明并非是中国政府操控贸易的结果；重商主义的贸易政策不仅给美国经济带来有形伤害，更重要的是将对美国所追求的一些立国价值和原则带来无形损害，影响世界和平，严重危及其软实力和世界领导力；作为全球制造和组装基地，对中国产品采取关税壁垒，必将严重影响全球价值链体系，对第三国带来“附带损害（collateral damage）”。该文发表后，被多家国际英文媒体网站全文转载，主要观点被亚洲时报（Asia Times）专栏作家引用。文章全文如下：

Tariff barriers will lead nowhere

来源：China Daily2018-05-14

The threat of a full-fledged trade war between China and the US might have receded thanks to the recent Sino-US trade talks. But many still fear China would suffer a bigger blow if a trade war indeed breaks out because it relies heavily on the US to keep its enormous export operation going.

The facts are different. Despite China exporting more products to the US than the US exports to China, there is no reason why Washington would emerge winner in a trade war. Since many US companies could lose access to the Chinese market and products in the event of a trade war, US citizens in general would have to not only pay more for consumer products, but also face pay cuts or lose their jobs.

Worse, since farmers in the United States would be caught in the middle of a trade war, as their agricultural produce exported to China could be one of the main retaliation targets for Beijing. And regardless of Trump's claim that trade wars are "good, and easy to win"－which was immediately criticized by many Americans－the US would suffer huge losses in a trade war. In fact, the tit-for-tat retaliation would be beneficial to neither the US nor China.

Besides, a trade war will have a damaging effect not only on the US and China, but also on global trade and thus the world economy. Tariff barriers will retard GDP growth for both countries, which in turn would slow down the global economy even before it has fully recovered from the impact of the global financial crisis.

China's won't be the only economy to be affected by US tariff barriers, because a wide network of value chains feed different materials, components and subcomponents into the global manufacturing and assembly base that is China. Many other economies could suffer, as many of the manufacturing companies operating in China are registered in other countries, including in the US. And with the retaliatory tariffs having a ripple effect, going all the way back to the suppliers across the world, many third countries could also suffer collateral damage.

Trump's trade policy is a reflection of mercantilism. Viewing global trade as a "zero-sum game", it favors protectionism in order to derive maximum profits, when the fact is, international trade is a win-win game that benefits all participants.

Trump should realize that the US' trade deficit with China is not a result of China adopting unfair policies. Instead, it is a result of many factors, such as different comparative advantages, the US' restrictions on the export of high-tech, low savings rate of Americans, and the US dollar being a global currency. So it is unfair to discriminate against Chinese products, by accusing China of practicing unfair policies.

Building tariff barriers as part of a trade policy is, to some extent, unilaterally declaring a war against multilateralism, and pitting protectionism against free trade, which is flagrant violation of the cardinal principles of the World Trade Organization.

The US for long saw it self as the beacon of non-discrimination, fair competition, free trade, openness and rule-based multilateralism. But under Trump's leadership, the US seems hellbent on violating the very principles on which it was established as a nation. Besides, Trump's "America First" policy is against the rules of the WTO.

Protectionism will cause tangible losses to the US economy. It will also cause intangible losses to its soft power and world leadership. And mercantilism, which promotes the building of tariff barriers to global trade, not only causes damage to the rule of law in international trade, but also harms global and regional peace.

The author is director of the Center for Global Governance, Xiamen University of Technology.