Starbucks Boycott? Nike Shutdown? China Holds Trade War Leverage

A Starbucks boycott? Mattel or Nike factory shutdowns?
China’s 2017 actions against South Korean firms may be model

Ben Jarman, economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Sydney, talks about the trade dispute between the U.S. and China.(Source: Bloomberg)

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By Matthew Townsend

August 20, 2018 at 4:01 AM UTC

Corrected

August 21, 2018 at 12:54 AM UTC

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America’s corporate bosses could be excused if they don’t agree with President Donald Trump’s boasts that a trade war is “easy to win.” They can just reflect on the levers of pain China pulled against South Korean-owned businesses last year to imagine a state-nudged boycott against Starbucks or shutdown of Nike’s factories.

China vows to retaliate against all U.S. tariffs and announced $60 billion worth of American goods it plans to slap tariffs on if Trump’s administration follows through with a proposal to impose duties on another $200 billion in Chinese imports. Since that’s more than the value of all U.S. exports to China, the Asian nation will need more than tit-for-tat tariffs to punch back.