WASHINGTON (March 8, 2021)—The relationship between the United States and China is one of the most important geopolitical relationships in the world—and will be for the foreseeable future. However, after years of tit-for-tat tariff increases, the relationship between the two countries has soured. How Washington and Beijing manage their relationship will have far-ranging consequences for global peace, prosperity and stability for decades to come.

In a new policy study, R Street trade policy counsel Clark Packard lays out how the United States can meet the very real challenges China poses to the international economic system. He argues that the most important thing we can do is outcompete Beijing. We can deploy trade tools to help, but we also need to make domestic reforms to improve our competitiveness vis-à-vis China.

“Ultimately, even the most carefully deployed tools of economic statecraft are no match for simply outcompeting China. Rather than mimicking Chinese industrial policy and mercantilism, policymakers in the United States should trust America’s traditional strengths: openness to international trade and immigration, and support for dynamic, market-based innovation,” says Packard.

Read the full policy study here.

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