Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about trade wars and hot ones, and whether one will morph into the other.

As we sit on the edge of a global trade war, we're getting a lot of questions about what it takes for a trade war to morph into the other kind, the Pugh Pugh kind.

The concern being expressed is grounded in history and how a lot of times trade conflicts

grew and spilled over into real ones.

It happens often enough for some people to believe that all wars are trade wars to some degree.

So yes, historically trade conflicts, disputes over natural resources, disruptions to shipping

and so on have led to actual shooting wars.

Is that likely in the case of Trump's global trade war?

Well, you'd have to start by looking at competitor nations that would actually think

they could go toe to toe to with the United States, that also have a strong enough economy

to actually make big enough gains economically for it to pay off.

It's a short list.

It's China.

End list. It's really unlikely that China attacks U.S. possessions.

But in today's world, most times there isn't a formal territory handover and maps aren't redrawn.

So it's also unlikely that China militarily attacks countries that are needed markets to the United States. Honestly, when it comes

to actual war, the most likely option is that a country tries to take advantage of the economic chaos

to achieve a military victory over disputed territory. So your risks of an actual shooting war are

pretty low, but not zero. However, because we don't

plant flags and say this land belongs to us now, very often in the modern world, that doesn't

fully address the overriding question. Will competitor nations make moves to take markets away from the United States?

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