Michael R. Strain, Columnist

U.S. Businesses Are Stuck in Trade War Uncertainty

Worry grows that the president just doesn’t understand international economics.

August 14, 2019 at 1:00 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Wrong about the U.S.-China trade war.
Photographer: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

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The tariff burden from the U.S.-China trade conflict is “falling almost 100 percent on China,” President Donald Trump’s senior economic adviser Larry Kudlow argued last week. But take a look at what’s happening to business investment in the U.S., and it’s obvious Kudlow is wrong.

Some businesses stand to gain from the president’s trade policy — especially those that compete with Chinese imports. Many others stand to lose. And none can be certain how Trump’s conflict with China will play out over the coming months and years. This leads companies to delay investment decisions, in hopes that the outlook will one day clear up.