Trade war: For countries like China, the free lunch is now history

Global trade will recover eventually but it is almost certain that no country will be allowed to 'game' the system to gain an unfair and sustained advantage

In his 1997 article in the Journal of Economic Literature, Paul Krugman famously stated that “The economist's case for free trade is essentially a unilateral case: a country serves its own interests by pursuing free trade regardless of what other countries may do.” This statement has become a kind of rallying cry for those opposed to the trade war initiated by the current US administration; proof that the trade war will hurt American interests in the long term.

And though Mr. Krugman, a winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics chooses to stand by this statement, the trade environment in which