Uday Khanapurkar, Research Intern, Institute of Chinese Studies
Strategic competition between the USA and China continues apace in the economic domain with tit-for-tat tariffs and strengthened investment regulations. This reassertion of sovereignty has irredeemably politicised economic intercourse. The market share that a state’s productive agents command has, akin to a conventional resource such as oil, emerged as a veritably prominent component of national power, thus bringing the zero-sum character of the international system to the fore. So much so, that the restructured Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the US, Mexico and Canada, or the USMCA, also reflects the adversarial tenor in US-China relations.
Much attention has duly been afforded to article 32.10 of the USMCA since it quite explicitly targets China. According to this provision, should any signatory to the agreement enter into an FTA with a non-market economy (read China), the other parties reserve the right to dismantle the USMCA following a six-month notice. Continue reading “The USMCA, China and the Politicisation of Economic Intercourse”