Trade wars in a winner-takes-all world

Brussels

WITH President Donald Trump's new trade tariffs, the United States has been transformed from the global multilateral trading system's leading champion and defender to its nemesis. But it would be very difficult for an erratic politician suddenly to overturn long-established structures and mechanisms, were it not for a more fundamental economic shift.

The first formal manifestation of today's trade tensions occurred in the steel sector - an "old economy" industry par excellence, one that is plagued, especially in China, by enormous excess capacity.

Excess capacity is a recurrent phenomenon in the steel sector, and has always produced friction. Back in 2002, President George W Bush's administration imposed steep tariffs on steel imports, but relented when a World Trade Organization dispute-resolution panel ruled against the US. Although Trump administration trade hawks remember this ruling as a loss, mo…