Trump’s trade attack on China − who will have the last laugh?

This article offers a quantitative analysis of the potential effects of the US-China trade dispute. China and the United States are currently in the process of negotiating an exit from the escalation spiral set in motion last year. We quantify the consequences of different trade dispute measures for the United States, China, the EU28, and the rest of the world. How will this play out in the modern world of fragmented global value chains, and what are the stakes? Does this conflict matter for outsiders? How much of the global downturn in economic activity can be plausibly explained by the trade conflict? This report sheds light on these questions.