A Study On The Influence Of U.S. Industrial Interests On China’s Trade Policy

Since China’s accession to the World Trade Organization(WTO),the economic and trade scale and overall welfare level of China and the United States have increased steadily.By the end of 2020,China and the United States are each other’s largest trading partners.At the same time,China and the United States are also one of the top five markets for the import and export of goods.However,China has gradually become the main target and victim of the US trade protection policy.Since2001,the United States has continuously formulated various trade protection policies against China,including policies on RMB exchange rate,anti-dumping and countervailing,export control,intellectual property rights,investment review restrictions,and the rampant trade war against China that began in 2018.The US sanctions and crackdown measures against China are emerging in endlessly,and the frequency and means are also escalating.It can be seen that the U.S.trade protection attitude towards China has not been eased due to the growth of bilateral trade scale.This shows that the formation of US trade policy towards China has its own logic and law.The formation of US trade policy towards China is a complex and interactive system.So far,domestic scholars have studied the factors affecting the formation of American trade policy towards China,such as interest group lobbying,government council game and party constraints,but the investigation from the perspective of industrial interests,the economic motivation behind these factors,needs to be supplemented;Part of the literature on the position and preference of industrial interest groups on trade policy towards China is roughly divided into "supporting free trade with China" and "supporting trade protection with China" based on their hearing testimony,joint letter and other lobbying behavior.Such classification neither goes deep into the specific analysis of specific industries,nor lacks certain data and technical support.In view of this,this paper mainly has two themes: first,how does Sino US trade affect the interests of domestic industries in the United States and how much does it affect the interests of different industries;Second,what is the causal relationship between American industries with different gains and losses in the formation of China’s trade policy,and what is the correlation transmission path and the degree of causal impact.This paper attempts to discuss the above two problems in order to make a supplement to relevant fields.First,measure the relative gains and losses of the interests of different industries in the United States under the influence of China US trade.This is the logical starting point for different industries of the United States to hold different trade policy positions towards China,and it is also the motivation for the formation of American trade policy towards China.Therefore,this paper analyzes the impact of Sino US trade on specific domestic industrial interests in the United States from two aspects:static industrial interests and dynamic industrial interests,so as to determine the relative beneficiaries and losers of the impact of Sino US trade.In terms of static benefits,this paper uses the value-added trade measurement framework to measure and analyze the value-added of Sino-US bilateral manufacturing goods trade,and analyzes the benefit distribution pattern of the two countries in the bilateral trade of different factor intensive industries;From the aspect of dynamic benefits,this paper selects wage income as the measurement index,and constructs the impact model of international trade on wages by using Cobb Douglas production function and technology and trade model.We judge the relative beneficiaries and losers of American manufacturing under the influence of Sino US trade.The labor-intensive industries in the United States belong to the relative victims of interests;Knowledge intensive industries in the United States are in a relatively beneficiary position.Among the capital intensive industries in the United States,low-tech capital intensive industries are the victims of relative interests,while medium and high-tech capital intensive industries such as electromechanical equipment products industry are the beneficiaries of relative interests.In recent years,China and the United States have been under constant pressure to improve the competitiveness of similar industries,which has become the core competitiveness of similar industries in the United States.In recent years,China and the United States need to pay attention to the continuous improvement of China’s capital intensive industries,which has formed a certain degree of competitiveness.Second,clarify the interaction mechanism between American industrial interests and trade decision-makers.This is the "ought to be analysis" of the core link in the formation of China’s trade policy.The formation of American trade policy is mainly the game and balance of industrial interest groups,Congress,President and administrative agencies.On the one hand,American industry exerts political and economic influence on policy makers through interest groups to realize the interest demands of trade with China;On the other hand,for the purpose of accumulating votes in order to win the election or general election,members of Congress or the president must attach great importance to the interest demands of industries in the constituency,and embed industrial interests into the formulation of trade policy towards China in accordance with the powers and procedures conferred by the US constitution.This paper summarizes the mechanism of the influence of industrial interests on American trade policy towards China into two levels : one is the institutional basis of the influence of American industrial interests on trade policy,including institutional guarantee and participants;The second is the transmission path of the impact of U.S.industrial interests on trade policy,including the means of influencing trade policy,the channels of influencing trade policy and the policy feedback path of decision-makers to industrial interests.Third,using empirical analysis and case analysis,this paper explores the impact and process of American industrial interests on the formation of American trade policy towards China.This is the "factual analysis" of the core link in the formation of China’s trade policy.In the aspect of empirical analysis,this paper constructs the import competition index from China at the state level to measure the impact of the import trade impact from China on the manufacturing industry of American States.This paper takes the naming and voting data of the China related trade protection act of the house of representatives of the 111th～116th session(2010～2020)as the research object,and makes an empirical test by using probit model,intermediary effect model and other methods.The results show that China’s import competition has a significant impact on the members of Congress voting on the China related trade bill;At the same time,the econometric model also verifies that industries under import competition play a significant role in the voting of congressmen on China related negative bills through political donations,and the influence of labor groups and human rights organization groups on U.S.policy authorities can not be underestimated.Further consider the interests of the U.S.Congress,the distribution of the interests of the group,the testimony of the interests of the whole industry and other policy constraints,and submit the empirical analysis of the testimony of the interests of the U.S.Congress,the distribution of the interests of the group and other issues to make up for the lack of policy constraints The political and economic impact measures taken to policy makers and the policy feedback of policy makers’ demands for industrial interests.The article finds that from the perspective of industry,different from the position of relatively damaged industries firmly supporting trade protectionism against China,the trade position of industries relatively benefiting from China US trade is more complex.On the one hand,their obvious comparative advantages make them not afraid of competition and hope that other countries in the world will open their markets to them;On the other hand,in view of their disappointment at China’s failure to fulfill its WTO commitments and anxiety about maintaining its international competitive advantage,their position on China has gradually changed to trade protection.From the perspective of trade policy makers,unlike the demands of damaged industries and beneficiary industries in the early 21 st century,policy exchange is mostly from the perspective of economic interests.For the demands of industrial interests since the trade war with China in 2018,American trade policy makers should not only reflect and meet the needs of relevant industrial interest groups,but also add more national strategies and ideological factors to contain China.Finally,on the basis of summarizing the above,the article makes two predictions on the development trend of American industrial interests and trade policy towards China.With the intensification of the game between China and the United States in the economic and trade field,the trade position of American interest damaged industries and beneficiary industries towards China will change in two trends :differentiation and moderation,spread and upgrading.American trade policy towards China will be affected by industrial interests,national strategic interests Ideological thinking and other multiple influences.At the same time,the article suggests that we should deepen the dynamic analysis of the interaction between American industrial interests and American trade policy towards China,so as to minimize the negative impact of American industries on American trade policy towards China and strive to safeguard China’s economic and trade interests towards the United States.