How the label “developing country” is assigned has become a bone of contention for the United States in its assessment of China and the WTO. But China can find middle ground by looking toward the World Bank’s GNI classification standard.

In early August, the renminbi’s exchange rate broke through the psychological threshold of CN¥7 per US dollar. While investors were still digesting the full significance of this event, US President Donald Trump’s administration startled the market by labeling China a “currency manipulator.”

Relying on its extraordinary strength, the United States can apply extreme pressure to chop an integral free trade agreement into several parts and then negotiate advantages in each.

A decoupling of China and the United States in the high-tech sector will reshape the international order, as competition becomes routine and more intense. Everyone in the global market will feel the impact.

One new study projects that the trade war is unwinnable by either country.

Applying maximum pressure, including labeling China as a “currency manipulator” will not sway China. If the U.S. refuses to return to the negotiation table, China has the option of seeking closer ties with other regional and international partners.

Today’s trade disputes epitomize a new stage of the globalization process. More and more countries are employing trade sanctions and customs duties for the purpose of national security. As globalization moves from integration to fragmentation and as competition becomes more intense and friction more frequent, open markets will become increasingly rare.

Washington plans to block an undersea cable backed by Google, Facebook, and a Chinese partner over national security concerns.

The recent inversion of the yield curve in the United States – with the interest rate on ten-year US government bonds currently lower than that on short-term bonds – has raised fears of a possible US recession later this year or in 2020. Yet, paradoxically, a downturn in America could help to improve bilateral economic relations with China and cool the two countries’ escalating trade dispute.

In the coming months, some of the worst collateral damage of US tariff wars will occur in sub-Saharan Africa. The adverse impact is likely to be aggravated by US protectionism, which shuns economic integration in Africa.