UNITED STATES-CHINA TRADE WAR AND THE EMERGENCE OF GLOBAL COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Oluwole Owoye and Olugbenga A. Onafowora
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Oluwole Owoye: Department of Social Sciences/Economics, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, Connecticut, USA
Olugbenga A. Onafowora: Department of Economics, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, USA

Economia Internazionale / International Economics, 2020, vol. 73, issue 4, 435-466

Abstract: This paper asserts that the retaliatory trade wars between the United States and China contributed to the emergence of the global COVID-19 pandemic because the trade wars hindered the collaboration, coordination, and transparent information sharing about infectious diseases that could have adverse effects on the global economy. The retaliatory trade wars between the two largest economies in the world turned the symmetric information sharing about global infectious diseases to asymmetric information sharing, thus the inability to prepare for the emergence of the current global COVID-19 pandemic shock. In the first two decades of the 21st century, the World Health Organization (WHO) in collaboration, coordination, and transparent information sharing with global health care systems managed to curtail the outbreaks of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002-2003, H1N1 in 2009, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2015, Dengue in 2016, and other deadly infectious diseases. We maintain that the symmetric information sharing enabled the WHO and the other global health care systems to build the firewall against these deadly infectious diseases. The absence of collaboration, coordination, and the symmetric information sharing due to the trade wars forced both countries to resort to information distortions; therefore, the inability to prepare for the global COVID-19 pandemic. Using conceptual economics, we show that the confluence of the retaliatory trade wars and COVID-19 pandemic has significant negative ramifications on economies worldwide. La guerra commerciale USA-Cina e l’emergenza sanitaria mondiale causata dalla pandemia di COVID-19 Secondo questo studio la guerra commerciale tra gli Stati Uniti e la Cina ha contribuito all’emergenza sanitaria causata dalla pandemia di COVID-19, in quanto ha ostacolato la collaborazione, il coordinamento e la condivisione trasparente delle informazioni circa le malattie infettive che potrebbero avere effetti sfavorevoli sull’economia globale. Tale guerra commerciale tra le due maggiori economie mondiali ha trasformato la condivisione simmetrica delle informazioni circa le malattie infettive in condivisione asimmetrica, da cui deriverebbe l’incapacità di affrontare l’attuale emergenza dovuta allo shock pandemico globale. Tramite l’economia concettuale viene dimostrato che la convergenza tra la guerra commerciale e la pandemia di COVID-19 causa conseguenze significative sull’economia mondiale.

Keywords: Trade Wars; Infectious Diseases; COVID-19; Collaboration; Information Sharing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F51 F53 O34 O38 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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