The US complaints about Chinas unfair trade practices remained unresolved for a very long time. Using techno-industrial policies, China was observed to have moved permanently away from market-based principles. Even then, as the US and Chinese economies are highly interdependent, a trade war between the two countries was unthinkable. When President Trump launched a trade war against China, a number of causal explanations were provided using systemic level factors. However, systemic explanations were not sufficient to explain why the trade war happened under President Trump. Also, an explanation for why trade was chosen as a weapon was not explicitly put forward. In order to provide clear answers, this article identifies a number of factors to explain the causes for the US trade war against China.
