Abstract The current China–US trade war that started in early 2018 has been the largest of this kind in the global market in the past half century, if not longer. Many speculations about the reasons for and progress and potential implications of the trade war emerge. Countries must understand the reasons for the war to avoid future trade wars. Predicting what will happen in the near future and the related economic consequences are even more important for people (including businessmen and government policymakers) to prepare for them and make corresponding decisions. However, endeavouring to predict is a tough job. This paper tries to provide an unbiased analysis through the lens of the trade literature. That is, we want to ask how much we can understand the current trade war on the basis of the accumulated knowledge we can obtain from our profession. Related theories include imperfect competition, increasing returns, terms of trade argument, distributional effects and political economy argument.

中文翻译：

---

从贸易文献的角度分析中美贸易战

摘要当前的中美贸易战始于2018年初，在过去的半个世纪中，即使不是更长的时间，也是全球市场上最大的此类贸易战。关于贸易战的原因，进展和潜在影响的许多猜测出现了。各国必须了解战争的原因，以避免将来发生贸易战。对于人们（包括商人和政府政策制定者）​​为他们做准备并做出相应的决策，预测在不久的将来会发生什么以及相关的经济后果变得更加重要。但是，努力预测是一项艰巨的任务。本文试图通过贸易文献的角度进行公正的分析。那是，我们想问一问，我们可以从我们的专业知识中学到的知识基础上对当前的贸易战有多少了解。相关理论包括不完全竞争，增加回报，贸易条件论，分配效应和政治经济学论点。