You! Hi Radio Atlantic listeners, this is Isaac Dauver, staff writer here at the Atlantic. Last week, President Trump upended trade negotiations with China

by hiking tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods,

from 10% to 25%, making good on a threat he issued last Sunday right before a Chinese delegation

visited the White House.

After a deal had looked imminent, trade talks had broken down.

Markets worried China would retaliate and now those worries seem

founded. On Monday China announced tariffs on 60 billion dollars in US goods. A trade

war between the world's two largest economies seems to be here, and the risks are

dire.

On Friday, Bank of America warned that a trade war could, it said, cause a global recession.

But, as the president infamously tweeted last year,

Trade wars are good and easy to win.

Trump doesn't sound like a lot of presidents,

but it's especially unusual for a Republican president

to cheer protectionism the way that he does.

The GOP had long championed free trade, but is now led by a man who seems deeply skeptical

of it. So today we're going to talk about

two huge trade battles, one within the Republican Party, another between the

U.S. and China. And with me to help explain both is a trade expert from the Libertarian Cato Institute.

Colin Grayboo is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Herbert A.

Steffel Center for Trade Policy Studies.

Colin's research focuses on U.S. trade with Asia

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