The Trump administration’s multi-front trade war dramatically escalated with the imposition of extraordinary tariffs on Chinese imports in 2018. Corporate America has responded with a concerted campaign of resistance. We document these efforts – through extensive participation in notice and comment and public coalition-building – and show that corporate opposition to the trade war is primarily a consequence of firms' sourcing and production linkages with China. In contrast, we find far weaker efforts by anti-trade firms to support the trade war, whether to insulate themselves from import competition or to confront Chinese trade practices. We therefore describe and empirically illustrate the politics of global production networks, and highlight that scholars of trade politics should not neglect opposition to the Trump trade agenda arising from globally integrated firms. Global order in the area of trade hangs in the balance in an ongoing fight between corporate globalism and populist nationalism.

Argues that Trump did not transcend the Cold War or the approaches of his post–Cold War predecessors. While stylistically very different, the substance of Trump’s foreign policy was more similar to than different from that of Bush Jr. and Obama. Examines his trade war with China and the consistency of approach that underpinned it. Concludes by arguing why and how the US remained dominant after the Cold War, and the enduring advantages it enjoys over it competitors like China.