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Articles by Bob Davis
Does the United States Have the Weapons for Trade War?
Geopolitics Economics United States Exactly when Washington soured for good on free trade is an open question. Maybe it was in 2008 under George W. Bush, when the United States couldn’t prevent India from blowing up the Doha global trade negotiations. Or maybe it was 2016, when both presidential candidates opposed the Trans Pacific Partnership, a last gasp effort by the departing Obama administration to create a free-trade pact in Asia.
Does the United States Have the Weapons for Trade War?
1 hour ago Will Rising Yields Cool Crypto Rally? | Presented by CME Group YouTube • 1h Record outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs, combined with geopolitical tensions, underscore an increasingly cautious mood among investors. As yields climb to multi-year highs, is the allure of Bitcoin and other high-risk investments fading?
Free Trade Is Dead in Washington
Economics United States China To understand U.S. trade policy, it’s best to think of chaos theory: the search for a pattern behind seemingly haphazard events. Donald Trump is the chaos agent in this case, threatening countries on a whim with sky-high tariffs like the Queen of Hearts thundering, “Off with their heads.” But beyond the seeming disorder, there is more of a Washington consensus on trade policy than is often not commonly recognized—and it dates back to the late Obama years.
China Books Review
Reviewed: Breaking The Engagement: How China Won & Lost America by David Shambaugh (Oxford University Press, June 2025). The U.S. didn’t adopt engagement as its formal policy toward China until a crisis threatened to destroy relations. After Chinese troops killed protestors at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, popular revulsion in the U.S. was so severe that Congress seemed poised to blacklist Beijing.
'Apple In China' Depicts a Marketing Triumph and a Political Risk
Politics Economics Science and Technology China In the early 1990s, Apple was determined to show it could continue to build computers in the United States as part of its strategy of keeping tight control over every aspect of design and production. Macintosh computers rolled off the line at one Apple factory “like a Holiday Inn toaster turns out toasted bagels,” according to a biography of Steve Jobs.
In U.S-China Trade War, Face Is All-Important to Xi and Trump
Economics United States As if U.S.-China relations weren’t complicated enough, the two sides are also squaring off over which side will lose face in their trade battle. In the United States, the Chinese concern about saving face is usually dismissed as pride—but U.S. President Donald Trump has made a career out of insisting that he get the upper hand in relations.
A U.S.-China Trade War?
Beijing and Washington seem in no mood to back down or betray weakness as they ramp up tariffs on each other. How much will it actually hurt their respective economies? How far will Beijing go to counter U.S. President Donald Trump? And will U.S. protectionism impact how the world engages with China? Join FP Live for a discussion with two experts.
Why China Can't Win a Trade War
Does China have some not-so-secret weapons that will help it outlast the U.S. in the trade war? It might seem so. Chinese leaders remind youth that they should learn to endure hardships—“eat bitterness,” as the Chinese say—unlike overweight and lazy Americans. Its autocratic government brooks no dissent so decision-making should be easier than in fractious America and decisions should stick longer.
Will Trump Back Down From a Global Trade War?
Economics United States China As comedian Oliver Hardy might have said to U.S. President Donald Trump about his tariffs, “Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten us into.” On the first full day of trading after his announcement, U.S. markets had their biggest rout since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,679 points. Now what?
Trump Has the Whole Global Trade System in His Sights
Economics United States China U.S. President Donald Trump’s second-term trade war officially began on Tuesday with fresh tariffs on China and retaliation from Beijing, but that’s only a small sample of what lies ahead. In his first term, the self-declared “tariff man” levied tariffs on a scale unseen since the 1930s, though he had fairly narrow goals: protect some favored industries like steel; focus on China, the U.S.’s biggest rival; and pressure allies to line up with U.S. political goals.
Trump vs. Xi: Who Will Win the Trade War? Original
“We have a thousand reasons to get the China-U.S. relationship right and not one reason to spoil it,” Xi told Trump during their Mar-a-Lago meeting. Eight years later, and the dynamics around each leader have shifted somewhat. Most notably, both are more entrenched now, with each having consolidated power. Unlike the 2016 election, Trump won the popular vote this time and is stocking his government with officials who understand how he operates.
How Washington Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Protectionism
United States China Shortly before the U.S. presidential race turned upside down (the attempted assassination of Republican nominee Donald Trump) and upside down again (President Joe Biden dropping out) and upside down again (Vice President Kamala Harris surging in polls compared to Biden), the president made a decision that upended decades of Democratic White House rule.
Who Is Influencing Trump's Foreign-Policy Views?
If former U.S. President Donald Trump wins the White House again, what might his foreign policy look like? The Republican candidate often shoots from the hip—consider his grand declaration that he can end the Russia-Ukraine war in a single day as just one example. Trump is also quick to distance himself from policy shop documents, such as the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, when they become politically inconvenient.
How Powerful Are China's Sovereign Funds?
Economics China One of the enduring mysteries of China’s economic rise is why the country’s extended engagement with Western capitalism and democracy didn’t diminish the role of the state and lead to greater political and economic liberalization. After all, dictatorships in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and other countries melted away after the West’s embrace spurred middle-class opposition that doomed authoritarian rule.
Reimagining Globalization
In the last two decades, with the global financial crisis and then the COVID-19 pandemic, countries began to worry globalization would expose them to too many risks. Nations are turning inward; many are investing in industrial policies, near-shoring, and economic independence instead of the integration and free trade that marked the second half of the 20th century. Should the world reconsider the case for globalization?
America’s Flailing Industrial Policy Can Take Lessons From China
Economics United States China The Biden White House has put together the most ambitious industrial policy program in decades, hoping to revive strategic industries that have withered at home because of foreign competition. The goal: to stay ahead of China by pumping up the United States’ industrial and technological might through a focus on clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing.
Mathias Döpfner’s Anti-China Trade Plan Would Be a Disaster
Let’s start by crediting Mathias Döpfner with good intentions. Döpfner, the CEO of German publishing giant Axel Springer SE, says that he wrote The Trade Trap: How to Stop Doing Business with Dictators to provide a road map to protect democracies from the likes of China and Russia and to expand the number of free nations. Let’s start by crediting Mathias Döpfner with good intentions.
Brookings colleagues remember David Dollar
Editor's note: David Dollar was a beloved member of the Brookings family for 10 years, from 2013 until his passing on October 6, 2023. You can learn more about David’s work on the Chinese economy and U.S.-China economic relations . I have been deeply saddened by the news of David Dollar’s passing. I knew David less well than several other of our colleagues, but David was an esteemed favorite of mine.
The Optimists' Case for China's Economy
It’s lonely these days for optimists on the Chinese economy. There’s widespread agreement among American China watchers—and there are so many of them now—that China has hit hard times that are bound to get a lot worse soon. It’s lonely these days for optimists on the Chinese economy. There’s widespread agreement among American China watchers—and there are so many of them now—that China has hit hard times that are bound to get a lot worse soon.
Trump Trade War Mastermind Is Back With a Dangerous New Plan
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer speaks with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at the Xijiao Conference Center in Shanghai on July 31, 2019. NG HAN GUAN/AFP via Getty Images In the clubby world of Washington, D.C., trade lawyers, Robert Lighthizer was always an outsider. He became wealthy representing the steel industry in its decadeslong battles to block imports, while Republican and Democratic administrations alike pursued free-trade deals.
'Money Machine' Tells Story of a Bad Chinese Bank Turned Around by Western Capital
Financier Weijian Shan made a boatload of money for himself and his Western partners when their Newbridge Capital became the first foreign firm to buy a state-owned Chinese national bank at least since the Communist victory in 1949 and sell it six years later. Shan’s Money Machine: A Trailblazing American Venture in China promises to explain the deal and its significance, but for readers looking to understand how China operates, the book disappoints. That’s probably a good move by Shan personally.
China's Pandemic Disaster Isn't A Win for Democracy
During much of the pandemic, China turned its handling of COVID-19 into an advertisement for autocracy, bragging about how its political system had allowed it to save lives, ship vaccines to poor countries, and become the world’s supplier of protective gear.
2022's Best Foreign-Policy Book Reviews
HomeEntertainment2022’s Best Foreign-Policy Book Reviews This year, as Foreign Policy expanded our Books section, we published everything from essays on the latest titles examining U.S.-China relations to analyses of sociological tomes to meditations on newly released fairy-tale collections and novels. Read on for some of our favorite reviews of 2022. 1. Who Got China Wrong?
Beijing’s Power Brokers Wouldn’t Surprise Robert Moses
I bought a paperback version of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker nearly 50 years ago when I was a young law school dropout sick of living in the traffic-wracked New York City that Robert Moses, the subject of the book, created. Like many others, I placed the book prominently on my bookshelf and left it unread. But new to retirement and full of vows, I decided this fall to finally read all 1,246 pages. Read Full Article »
Beijing’s Power Brokers Wouldn’t Surprise Robert Moses
I bought a paperback version of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker nearly 50 years ago when I was a young law school dropout sick of living in the traffic-wracked New York City that Robert Moses, the subject of the book, created. Like many others, I placed the book prominently on my bookshelf and left it unread. But new to retirement and full of vows, I decided this fall to finally read all 1,246 pages. Yet the story that Caro told wound up reminding me as much of Beijing as it did of New York.
What Do Electric Cars Really Cost? Original
Clean cars drive some very dirty businesses and grubby regimes. That’s the main takeaway from Henry Sanderson’s fine new book Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green. Among the winners he describes are copper miners exploiting child labor, nickel miners dumping tons of waste into the sea, corrupt businesspeople paying off venomous African politicians, and a host of Chinese billionaires. It’s a far cry from the sanitized vision sold to Tesla owners.
Bob Davis - Foreign Policy
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Back to the Future: Industrial Policy Makes a Comeback
The White House and influential lawmakers in both parties are celebrating a big win on tiny chips. New legislation passed by Congress will give about $52 billion in grants to some of the world’s largest and richest computer chip makers to build or expand their factories in the U.S., plus another $24 billion or so in manufacturing tax credits. Usually, largesse of this scale would be bitterly attacked by conservative Republicans as corporate welfare.
Divorcing from China? – Daniel Blumenthal
What is the proper role of commercial relations in the Sino-American geopolitical competition? Should Washington do anything to economically strengthen the most complicated and challenging rival it has ever faced? Thus far policymakers have avoided this most fundamental of strategic questions. But a well-considered answer would help clarify much of the confusion that bedevils the current China policy debate.
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