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In this Money Talks: Emily Peck sits down with Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown, co-authors of How to Win a Trade War, to discuss how recent conflicts have changed the rules of international trade and which strategy they believe is the key to “winning” a modern trade war. Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this Money Talks: Emily Peck sits down with Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown, co-authors of How to Win a Trade War, to discuss how recent conflicts have changed the rules of international trade and which strategy they believe is the key to “winning” a modern trade war. Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this Money Talks: Emily Peck sits down with Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown, co-authors of How to Win a Trade War, to discuss how recent conflicts have changed the rules of international trade and which strategy they believe is the key to “winning” a modern trade war. Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
You've probably heard the phrase, "There are no winners in a trade war." But that doesn't mean we don't all have to fight one these days. That's according to Financial Times columnist Soumaya Keynes and former White House economic advisor Chad P. Bown. They join Piya Chattopadhyay to talk about their new guidebook to the new normal of economic battle, How to Win a Trade War, and offer advice to Canada on taking on the world – and Washington – especially as the CUSMA joint review approaches.
Host Piya Chattopadhyay speaks with Kelley Lee, Canada Research Chair in global health governance at Simon Fraser University, about Canada's travel restrictions amid the Ebola outbreak, and what past events can tell us about how and when to use travel measures to mitigate health risksCriminologist Michael Kempa unpacks what recent shoplifting data says about who's stealing and why, and culture critic Rachel Shteir explores the story that shoplifting has told about society over timeEconomists Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown discuss their guidebook to the new normal of economic battle, How to Win a Trade War, and offer advice to Canada about taking on the worldNavigator founder Jaime Watt sheds light on how crisis management works, and how it's changed in today's fast-paced and politically polarized information environment
“The rules-based system just hasn't worked. China's system is so opaque that you can't see the subsidies. And when you've got China not interested in new rules and the US not interested in a referee, you've got two of the world's biggest actors who aren't on board.” — Soumaya Keynes It would have been nice to get John Maynard Keynes on the show to get his critique of Trump's trade war. But in the long run, we're all dead — even old Maynard. So instead, we found his great-great-niece, Soumaya Keynes — Financial Times columnist and co-author of How to Win a Trade War: An Optimistic Guide to an Anxious Global Economy. Having already appeared on Jon Stewart this week, Soumaya has a bit of Keynesian star quality about her. But she's also a first-rate economist. Her thesis is that the old rules-based trading system that her great-great-uncle helped design after World War II is gone. And it ain't coming back. China's subsidies are so opaque that rules can't be written to constrain them, let alone enforced. The US is no longer willing to submit to a referee. Without the two biggest players, no rules-based system is meaningful. So — now what? Keynes says we must think like a trade warrior. Donald Trump should leverage the tools available — but use them strategically. Trump's error in his second term was not being tough on China while being too tough on everyone else, especially allies like Canada and Mexico. Soumaya Keynes' most contemporary idea might be her most Keynesian one. John Maynard Keynes proposed penalties for countries running large trade surpluses as well as those running deficits — recognising that global imbalances are a two-sided problem. That idea didn't make it into the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement. Eighty years later, in equally anxious economic times, his optimistic great-great-niece is reviving it. Five Takeaways • Can Trade Wars Be Won? Yes, Sometimes: The conventional wisdom: no one wins a trade war. Keynes and Bown agree — in theory. In practice, countries in a weaker position cave. History has examples: France in the late nineteenth century told its trading partners they were renegotiating treaties, and the smaller partners complied. Trump's tariffs in his first term produced concessions. The problem is not that trade wars can't be won. It's that the smaller power's only defence — coordinating with other smaller powers — is extremely hard to sustain. There's always an incentive to cut a deal first. • China Is the Doper on the Sports Field: Keynes's sharpest analogy: the global trading system is like a sports game that needs rules to ensure a level playing field. China's subsidies — cheap credit, corporate handouts, opaque support for state-linked companies — are the equivalent of performance-enhancing drugs. The problem is that unlike doping in sport, China's subsidies are invisible. You can write a rule saying China won't give these handouts. But you can't verify compliance. And without enforcement, rules are meaningless. The WTO has not solved this. Nothing has solved this. • Trump Was Right About China, Wrong About Everything Else: Keynes is careful here. She credits Robert Lighthizer in Trump's first term with identifying China as the real problem and building a focused strategy. In the second term, Trump put tariffs on everyone simultaneously — which dissipated leverage, alienated the coalition of allies needed to pressure Beijing, and mixed up the problem of China's subsidies with grievances against Canada, Mexico, and the EU. If you were genuinely tough on China, you wouldn't have put tariffs on everyone. You would have been more targeted. • The Rules-Based System Is Gone and Isn't Coming Back: Why can't we return to the system Keynes's great-great-uncle helped build? Two reasons. China's subsidies are too opaque to write enforceable rules against. And the US has lost confidence in any international referee — a long and complex story, but the result is that America won't submit to neutral adjudication. Without the two biggest players, no rules-based system is meaningful. Yearning for the old approach is not an option. A new strategy is needed — and that's what the book is about. • AI and the Next Trade War: Services: AI is central to the US-China conflict already — chip restrictions, military advantage, economic supremacy. But Keynes's less-noticed observation: AI could fundamentally reshape international services trade. The UK, for example, is a massive services exporter — finance, legal, consulting, accounting. If AI eliminates demand for those services, the UK faces a new current account crisis, new trade tensions, a new wave of economic conflict. Nobody knows how this plays out. Which is why, she suggests, the tools in the book will remain relevant for longer than the current tariff cycle. About the Guests Soumaya Keynes is an economics columnist at the Financial Times and host of The Economics Show with Soumaya Keynes. Before joining the FT she spent eight years at The Economist. She co-founded the Trade Talks podcast with Chad Bown during Trump's first term. Chad P. Bown is the Reginald Jones Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former Chief Economist at the US State Department under President Biden. Together they are the authors of How to Win a Trade War: An Optimistic Guide to an Anxious Global Economy (Simon & Schuster, May 26, 2026). References: • How to Win a Trade War: An Optimistic Guide to an Anxious Global Economy by Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown (Simon & Schuster, May 26, 2026). • Soumaya Keynes on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, May 19, 2026 — referenced in the interview. • Episode 2892: Jason Pack on the Iran war — the companion episode on America's strategic distractions from the China problem. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,900 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouT...
Janet Bush talks with Chad P. Bown. Bown is Reginald Jones Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. They cover topics including: How contentious current trading relationships are in the context of history Is the world deglobalizing or not? The economic and human cost of decoupling See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information
This is a session that Bruegel organised at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Public Forum in Geneva. The participation of China in the WTO has been anything but smooth. Its self-proclaimed “socialist market economy” system has alienated its trading partners. Two diametrically opposite approaches (and a few variations of them) have been proposed to deal with the emerging problems. One is to demand that China changes its economic regime. The other is to stay idle and accept that the WTO must accommodate different economic regimes, no matter how idiosyncratic. At this event we want to propose a third way. In our view, the problems posed by China are due to the fact that, while in the past the GATT/WTO had to address the accession of socialist countries or of big trading nations, it never had to deal with a big, socialist country like China. In order to retain its principles and yet accommodate China, the WTO needs to translate some of its implicit legal understanding into explicit treaty language. Speakers: Chair: Arancha González, Executive Director, International Trade Centre Chad P. Bown, Reginald Jones Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics Xiankun Lu, Managing Director, LEDECO Geneva Petros C. Mavroidis, Edwin B. Parker Professor of Foreign & Comparative Law, Columbia University André Sapir, Senior Fellow, Bruegel Read more at https://bruegel.org/events/china-and-the-wto-towards-a-better-fit/
This week the gang talks about President Trump’s trade policies and why trade wars can be bad and hard to win. Do we have a strategy for success, or is the president simply venting frustration through erratic policies? What is the endgame? How do America's economic policies, especially with regard to China, affect U.S. national security? Other highlights: Chris condemns Trump’s attempt to buy Greenland, Melanie finds a CEO worthy of immense respect, and Bryan explains why real British royalty isn’t as appealing as the Netflix version. Links Chad P. Bown and Douglas A. Irwin, "Trump's Assault on the Global Trading System: And Why Decoupling from China Will Change Everything," Foreign Affairs, September 2019 Chad P. Bown and Melina Kolb, "Trump's Trade War Timeline: An Up-to-Date Guide," Peterson Institute for International Economics, August 13, 2019 Madeleine Kearns, "Royals, Climate Change, and Private Jets," National Review, August 19, 2019 Scott Lincicome, CATO Institute Simon Lester and Huan Zhu, "Closing Pandora's Box: The Growing Abuse of the National Security Rationale for Restricting Trade," CATO Institute, June 25, 2019 "Clashing over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy," Cato Institute, January 24, 2018 Pierre Lemieux, “Peter Navarro’s Conversion,” Regulation, Fall 2018 John Harwood, “Americans Overwhelmingly Support Free Trade as Concern Grows About Trump’s Economy: NBC/WSJ Poll,” CNBC, August 19, 2019 Scott Lincicome, "The ‘Protectionist Moment’ That Wasn’t: American Views on Trade and Globalization," Cato Institute, November 2, 2018 "Former Danish PM Lied About Iraq War Plans," Local, July 3, 2015 Tim Marcin, “Denmark to Trump: Seriously, Greenland Isn't for Sale,” Vice News, August 19, 2019 Maggie Fitzgerald, “Here’s What New Tariffs Will Cost the Average American Household,” CNBC, August 19, 2019 “Exploring the Militarization of US Foreign Policy,” American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, August 31, 2019 “The Human Costs of War: Assessing Civilian Casualties since 9/11,” Cato Institute, September 11, 2019
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown explain developments resulting from President Trump’s announcement of new “national security” import tariffs on steel and aluminum. They discuss those countries hit by—and...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown have a wide-ranging conversation with Dani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School) about trade agreements. In Part 4 of this 4-episode conversation, they provide a...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown have a wide-ranging conversation with Dani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School) about trade agreements. In Part 3 of this 4-episode conversation, they discuss concerns...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown have a wide-ranging conversation with Dani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School) about trade agreements. In Part 1 of this 4-episode conversation, they discuss the...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown have a wide-ranging conversation with Dani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School) about trade agreements. In Part 2 of this 4-episode conversation, they discuss ways...
Soumaya Keynes of the Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown explore the US Department of Commerce findings that imports of steel and aluminum threaten national security and the recommendation that President Trump impose...
PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes of the Economist talk with PIIE Senior Fellow Douglas Irwin about his recent book Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy and the role...
PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes of The Economist discuss the challenges facing the UK government as it seeks negotiations separate from the Brexit talks to maintain existing market access through the...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown discuss the evolution of the auto industry in North America. Long before the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the 1965 Canada-US...
Chad P. Bown cautions the Trump administration that its unconventional trade policies—such as imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum, and over intellectual property—could lead to conflict with some of the United States’ largest trading partners.
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown discuss the controversy surrounding the US washing machine market and update the solar panels case, in light of President Trump’s decision to impose...
Soumaya Keynes (The Economist) and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown speak with Professor Meredith Crowley (University of Cambridge) about her Brexit research. Crowley describes results from her use of information on product-level UK exports...
PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes of The Economist focus on the December 2017 World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires. They describe the contentious negotiations over India’s public stockholding...
PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes of The Economist survey listeners and conduct interviews from the WTO ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires, to describe some of the more bizarre—and fascinating—barriers to international...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown talk with PIIE Senior Fellow Marcus Noland about his research on implementing trade sanctions on North Korea. First up is his recent book...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown talk with PIIE Senior Fellow Caroline Freund about her research on big firms, billionaires, international trade, and economic development. First up is her...
PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes of the Economist examine the new Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). They discuss how 11 persistent countries pulled the original TPP deal from...
PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes of the Economist examine the impact of international trade on economic activity within developing countries like India, Vietnam, and Brazil. They talk with Professor Nina Pavcnik...
PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes of The Economist examine what a no-deal Brexit would look like, or the economic implications if Britain were to split from the European Union without a...
On the occasion of its 70th anniversary, PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes of The Economist focus on the origins of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT. They speak...
Soumaya Keynes of the Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown focus on the economic tension arising through the ongoing NAFTA—or North American Free Trade Agreement—talks between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown discuss an ongoing trade dispute involving large civil aircraft jets, Bombardier and Boeing, as well as the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom,...
PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes of The Economist focus this week on the costs of increased uncertainty generated by President Trump’s threat to rip up US trade agreements as well as...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown discuss President Trump’s upcoming choice to grant trade protection to a sliver of the US solar manufacturing industry. The episode describes cleavages within...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown focus on the Trump administration’s approach to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The episode describes US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer’s recently articulated positions...
This week Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes focus on the South Korea-US free trade agreement (KORUS) and President Donald Trump’s unhappiness with it, as his administration alternates between threats of withdrawal and renegotiation. The...
This week Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes focus on the South Korea-US free trade agreement (KORUS) and President Donald Trump’s unhappiness with it, as his administration alternates between threats of withdrawal and renegotiation. The...
This week Chad P. Bown and Soumaya Keynes focus on the South Korea-US free trade agreement (KORUS) and President Donald Trump’s unhappiness with it, as his administration alternates between threats of withdrawal and renegotiation. The...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown discuss the economics of trade policy. This week they focus on three big fights in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations,...
Soumaya Keynes of The Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown discuss the issues involved in President Trump’s triggering a “Section 301” investigation of China’s unfair treatment of American intellectual property. This special episode...
Soumaya Keynes of the Economist and PIIE Senior Fellow Chad P. Bown introduce a weekly and geeky podcast on developments in international trade and policy. This week’s episode covers the hosts’ favorite trade (short) stories...
Recently one of our listeners contacted us to say he heard a BBC correspondent describe the iPhone as the most profitable product in history. It was just an off-the-cuff comment but it got us thinking – could it be true? We asked listeners to get in touch with their suggestions. We take a look at a handful of them, from Viagra to popcorn in our quest for an answer. Could it be something more historical? EU and trade: We take a look at the numbers on trade and at the UK's relationship with the EU. Tim Harford interviews Chad P. Bown, a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.Leicester City's Premier League success: At the beginning of the football season we explored the fallibility of predictions from experts and fans. As the season is ending, that is the only prediction we made correctly – that they are usually very wrong. Leicester City has had an astonishing success in winning the English Premier League. We take a look at the numbers behind the team's performance.Sexist Data Crisis: Are countries around the world failing to collect adequate details about their female citizens? Campaigners have argued we are missing data in areas that would help us understand women's lives better, for example land and inheritance rights. We also explore how women's work can be overlooked from labour surveys.