Trade dispute

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Trade dispute (also: trade war , trade war ; English was trade or trade dispute ) is in the economic policy and especially foreign trade , a conflict between two or more States , the repressive by using foreign trade instruments or trade barriers is performed.

General

Trade disputes require international trade and contradict the international principle of free trade , which works largely without trade barriers. The martial metaphor "trade war" is intended to make it clear today that foreign trade instruments are not only used by one state, but that at least one affected state reacts to this by countermeasures, which can contribute to the escalation of the conflict. Historically, however, there have also been trade blockades and naval wars that affected trade, so that the trade war can also be carried out exclusively with warfare . Thus today the trade war is an economic war limited to foreign trade .

history

On June 24, 1258, a real trade war broke out off Acre for supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean , instigated by the economic centers of Pisa , Genoa , Venice and Marseille in the Adriatic , with Genoa alone losing half of its 48 warships and 1,700 men. In Acre there was a comparatively small Venetian trading quarter, it offered Venetian merchants and their goods space. An agreement on separate trading venues only ended this trade war in January 1261. In August 1267 the Genoese blocked Acre again, but were routed by the Venetians under their doge Lorenzo Tiepolo . In 1372 another trade war broke out between Venice and Genoa, a campaign of revenge that lasted until 1373.

In 1448, Elector Friedrich II forbade his subjects to visit the annual markets in Magdeburg . This also started a protracted trade dispute between Halle and Leipzig over the New Year's fair when Emperor Friedrich III. in May 1464 Halle issued a confirmation for the New Year's Fair and in January 1466 confirmed the Leipzig New Year's Market. From 1453 Halle under Emperor Friedrich III. the "Wegepfennig". Regional trade conflicts like this one occurred quite often, such as the trade dispute between the city of Cologne and the Duchy of Geldern between 1463 and 1474. The Cologne merchant Hermann von der Hallen was forcibly prevented from selling his goods there in Geldern , despite his ducal letter of safe conduct. The Duke of Geldern threatened him with severe reprisals, in return the City of Cologne Council allowed in October 1463 the hindrance of Geldrian merchants in Cologne. A Cologne council decision of October 5, 1465 allowed the confiscation of goods and people from Gelderland. Even Emperor Frederick III. Intervention of August 12, 1468 to settle the dispute was ignored, so that on January 15, 1474 he granted the city of Cologne permission to do any kind of trade with money.

The trade treaty concluded by Lord Paul Methuen (1672–1757) in 1703 between England and Portugal is considered the beginning of liberal trade policy . A report on the trade dispute between Saxony and Prussia in 1747 mentioned that Iserlohn in particular organized the importation of French goods by land and water from Le Havre . Scientists, in particular, campaigned for free trade in response to these restrictions on trade. The physiocrats Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours , François Quesnay ("Freedom of Trade") and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot put forward their call for free trade. In 1764, Du Pont de Nemours wrote a pamphlet on "Export and Import of Grain and Flour", in which he advocated free trade. In 1767 Quesnay recommended: “Maintain complete freedom of trade; because the most secure, strictest and most favorable policy for the nation and the state ... consists in the complete freedom of competition ”. At Quesnay, the abolition of export bans and export tariffs was one of the cornerstones of his doctrine. In 1774, Turgot reintroduced the old freedom law of the grain trade. Turgot believed that only a free grain trade could guarantee an equal supply of the population.

Adam Smith made free trade the cornerstone of his economics. In his theory of ethical feelings in 1759 he advocated free trade, and generally advocated economic freedom. He saw free trade as an opportunity to use absolute cost advantages between countries. Smith approved of free trade, but viewed it as a utopia. He was right, because in July 1759 the Prussian auxiliary warship "Prinz Ferdinand" began the trade war in the Mediterranean by privateer and brought a total of 14 ships up to his return in March 1760 after Frederick II had banned this privateer by order. Setbacks continued to occur in free trade. In 1774 England banned the export of machines. Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet , published in the year of his death in 1794 the “Draft of a historical account of the progress of the human mind”. He held prohibitive laws in trade ( French loi prohibitive ) for the greatest violation of property even before taxation.

The continental blockade ( French blocus continental ) ordered by Napoleon in Berlin in November 1806 was considered an economic blockade over the British Isles , which remained in force until March 1813. It was supposed to bring Great Britain to its knees with the means of economic war. In addition, this measure was intended to protect the French economy against European and transatlantic competition. Ever since David Ricardo's theory of the comparative cost advantage from 1806, the conviction has prevailed in economics and economic policy that free trade increases the prosperity of both domestic and foreign economies . Ricardo brought three main arguments in favor of free trade in 1817, namely productivity, distribution and conversion criteria (sudden changes in trade routes ).

England under Prime Minister Robert Peel lifted a total of 605 tariffs between 1841 and 1846. Above all, the freedom to export coal and machines from England was introduced, export taxes on wool were abolished (1842) and a further 1,035 customs duties were reduced. In his main work published in 1841, the German economist Friedrich List advocated a protective tariff for underdeveloped countries to the outside world ("education tariff") until an internationally competitive industry had developed. Julius Lehr , who in 1877 still saw the protective tariff as a “simple and convenient means of education”, appealed to this in order to enforce state autarky efforts .

Sinking of an English merchant cruiser by a German submarine (painting by Willy Stöwer , 1915)

Trade wars also took place in the two world wars . In February 1915, for example, the trade war with submarines began in the North Sea as a countermeasure against the British blockade that led to Germany's economic constriction. In April 1915 the submarine trade war began in the Baltic Sea . These trade wars lasted until January 1917. Between January and March 1941 there was a trade war in the North Atlantic , this last major trade war at sea took place during the Atlantic Battle of World War II , when England cut off Germany from supplies by sea with a naval blockade and Germany tried to get through the sinking of cargo ships on a large scale, especially with submarines and commercial sturgeon cruisers, to bring down England economically. The Mediterranean was not spared from the trade war either. The Berlin Airlift between June 1948 and May 1949 made it possible to maintain supplies to West Berlin despite the Berlin blockade by the Soviet Union .

The Cuba-United States relations were burdened with mutual boycotts in July 1960th After Cuba expropriated US oil companies, the US responded in July 1960 by blocking imports of Cuban sugar. In August 1960 there was then the nationalization of the entire corporate property of the United States on Cuba. The USA reacted to this in October 1960 with an export embargo. Cuba then managed to mitigate the extent of the damage to its economy intended by the trade embargo by establishing trade relations with the Soviet Union. On February 7, 1962, the US government imposed a total trade embargo on Cuba, which led to severe supply shortages in Cuba.

The world trade since the establishment of the GATT declined characterized by the reduction of trade barriers in October 1947 so that trade restrictions tend to be. In March 1994, US President Bill Clinton made use of Section 301 of the US Trade Act against unfair trading partners in the 1985 trade dispute with Japan . The World Trade Organization emerged from the GATT in April 1994 and deals with the regulation of international trade and economic relations. Multilateralism and economic integrations such as the Coal and Steel Community (April 1951), NAFTA (January 1994), the Peoples' Trade Agreement (April 2006) or the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (January 2010) promoted free trade, but were later unable to prevent individual trade disputes.

Trade conflict between the United States and the People's Republic of China

US President Donald Trump introduced punitive tariffs as part of his policy of protectionism and interventionism (" America First ") with reference to the negative US trade balance in January 2018 and imposed them on washing machines and solar systems from China ; in March 2018 global protective tariffs were introduced Steel and aluminum are added. In April 2018, China responded with countermeasures, the European Union responded with countermeasures in July 2018 (import duties on bourbon whiskey , jeans and motorcycles: Harley-Davidson ). On August 23, 2018, further US measures against the People's Republic of China came into force. The associated list includes 279 products, including metals , chemicals and electronics , that were subject to punitive tariffs of 25%. The value of the affected goods is approximately 16 billion US dollars . Trump had an increase in taxes on other Chinese products with a total value of around 200 billion US dollars examined and implemented; Once implemented, more than half of all US imports from China were subject to duties from the end of 2018. In return, China reacted not only to US automobiles but also to agricultural products with special taxes. This was intended to target Trump's rural voter clientele.

In August 2019, the US government under Donald Trump announced a further 10 percent tariffs on Chinese goods worth $ 300 billion, which will come into effect in September 2019.

Causes and instruments of the trade dispute

The only economically explainable cause of a trade conflict is a state's trade balance . A disruption of the foreign trade balance to be striven for occurs both in the case of long-term trade deficits (“passive trade balance”) and long-term trade balance surpluses (“active trade balance”). If a country's trade balance is passive, the balance of payments can be balanced through capital imports ( borrowing ) or foreign investments . If borrowing is not desired because of an already high national debt or for general reasons and devaluations of the currency do not lead to the expected throttling of imports, the weakest means of the trade dispute is the import tariff .

The most effective measures include above all foreign trade instruments (such as import quotas , export permits ), economic sanctions (such as embargo , tariffs , blockades such as sea ​​blockades ) or trade boycotts . The trade dispute includes not only restrictions on the export and / or import of goods and services , but also the impairment of the free movement of capital through capital controls .

Remarks

  1. ↑ “trade dispute” can also stand for “strike”

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: trade war  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Detlef Wienecke-Janz (Hrsg.): The great chronicle world history: Bloom and autumn of the Middle Ages 1204-1492 . 2008, p. 98
  2. ^ Ernst Hasse: History of the Leipzig Fair . 1885, p. 11 ff.
  3. ^ Gustav Hertzberg: History of the city of Halle on the Saale in the Middle Ages . 1889, p. 415 f.
  4. ^ Leonhard Ennen: History of the city of Cologne . Volume 3. 1869, p. 440
  5. ^ Leonhard Ennen: History of the city of Cologne . Volume 3. 1869, p. 447
  6. ^ Leonhard Ennen: History of the city of Cologne . Volume 3. 1869, p. 452
  7. ↑ August Lammers : The historical development of free trade . 1869, p. 462
  8. ^ Wilfried Reininghaus: The city of Iserlohn and its merchants (1700–1815) . 1995, p. 241
  9. ↑ August Lammers : The historical development of free trade . 1869, p. 462
  10. ^ Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours: Exportation et importation des grains . 1764, p. 84
  11. ^ François Quesnay: Maximes générales du gouvernement économique d'un royaume agricole . 1767/1992, p. 263
  12. ↑ Sigmund von Frauendorfer, Heinz Haushofer: History of ideas in agriculture and agricultural policy in the German-speaking area . 1963, p. 161
  13. ↑ Folkert Hensmann: State and absolutism in the thinking of the physiocrats . 1976, p. 231
  14. ↑ August Lammers: The historical development of free trade . 1869, p. 463
  15. ^ Adam Smith: Theory of Moral Sentiments . 1759, p. 14 ff.
  16. ^ Albert Röhr: Handbook of German naval history . 1963, p. 29
  17. ^ Paul Bairoch: European trade policy, 1815-1914 . In: Peter Mathias, Sidney Pollard (Eds.): The Cambridge Economic History of Europe . vol. VIII: The Industrial Economies: The Development of Economic and Social Policies . P. 12
  18. ^ Marquis de Condorcet: Esquisses d'un tableau historique des progres de I'esprit humain . 1794, p. 333 ff.
  19. ^ Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat marquis de Condorcet: Oeuvres complètes de Condorcet . Volume 19, 1804, p. 263
  20. ^ David Ricardo: Principles of Political Economy and Taxation . 1817, p. 44 ff.
  21. ↑ Georg Hummel: The theory of international trade its development from David Ricardo to Frank William Taussig . 1937, p. 31
  22. ^ Charles Poor Kindleberger: The rise of free trade in Western Europe 1820–1875 . In: The Journal of Economic History . vol. 35, 1975, p. 28
  23. ^ Friedrich List: The national system of political economy , 1841, p. 108 ff.
  24. ^ Julius Lehr: Protective Customs and Free Trade . 1877, p. 38
  25. ^ Albert Röhr: Handbook of German naval history . 1963, p. 138
  26. ↑ Hannelore Crolly, Nikolaus Doll: Why the Germans in particular fear a trade war . In: Die Welt , May 31, 2018
  27. ↑ Next escalation: New US punitive tariffs against China hit electronics. In: The Standard . August 8, 2018. Retrieved August 8, 2018 .
  28. ↑ Donald Trump announces new tariffs against China . Zeit Online , August 2, 2019
  29. ↑ Mieko Hanaeda: The trade dispute between Japan and the EC countries . 1982, p. 141