Calling Out China’s Mercantilism

Debate has started anew about whether China's currency should still be classified as “manipulated.” However, currency manipulation is only one method of mercantilist policy to give domestic industries an unfair advantage, and as Adams Nager writes in The International Economy, China’s aggressive innovation mercantilism has, if anything, grown stronger in recent years, as it has sought absolute advantage across a wide range of advanced technology industries. These mercantilist policies, combined with the United States' productivity slowdown, account for the still-growing trade deficit between the United States and China and hundreds of thousands of lost manufacturing jobs.