미국, 자유무역 포기…중국 위협과 산업 공백이 관세 정책 전환 배경
Free trade isn’t coming back and here’s why - Asia Times
무역 정책 변화는 불확실성을 초래하지만, 즉시 시장에 미치는 영향은 미미합니다.
핵심 요약
재무장관 스콧 베센트는 미국이 무역의 국가안보적 함의를 무시해 왔다고 강조했습니다.
핵심요약
- 미국 재무장관 스콧 베센트는 미국이 무역의 국가안보적 함의를 무시해 왔다고 강조했습니다.
- 중국은 경제적 자립을 추구하는 정책을 추진하고 있으며, 이는 미국 정부의 관세 정책 전환을 이끌었습니다.
- 미국은 자유무역에 대한 믿음을 상실했으며, 고임금 제조업 일자리의 감소와 중국에 대한 위협 인식이 주요 원인입니다.
도입
이 기사는 투자자에게 왜 중요한가요? 미국이 자유무역에서 벗어나 경제적 자립을 추구하는 정책으로 전환하고 있다는 점에서 투자자들은 시장 변화에 민감하게 반응해야 합니다. 특히 반도체, 농업, 제조업 등 주요 산업에 대한 정책 변화가 투자 결정에 큰 영향을 미칠 수 있습니다.
본문 1: 미국 정부의 경제적 자립 정책 전환
미국 재무장관 스콧 베센트는 미국이 무역의 국가안보적 함의를 무시해 왔다고 강조했습니다. 이는 미국이 산업 기반을 약화시키고, 필요한 제품은 수입에 의존해 왔다는 것을 의미합니다. 이러한 정책 전환은 미국 정부가 경제적 안보를 국가안보와 동일한 수준으로 고려하게 됨으로써 투자자들에게 새로운 시장 동향을 예측하는 데 중요한 지표가 될 수 있습니다.
본문 2: 중국의 경제적 자립 정책의 영향
중국은 경제적 자립을 추구하는 정책을 추진하고 있으며, 이는 미국 정부의 관세 정책 전환을 이끌었습니다. 중국은 농업, 제조업 등 주요 산업에서 자립을 추구하고 있으며, 이는 글로벌 공급망에 큰 영향을 미칠 수 있습니다. 특히 농업 분야에서는 대두 수입을 줄이기 위해 발효 사료를 개발하는 등 다양한 전략을 구사하고 있습니다.
결론
이 기사는 미국과 중국의 경제 정책 변화가 글로벌 시장 동향에 미치는 영향을 분석했습니다. 투자자들은 이러한 정책 변화에 주목하고, 시장 동향을 예측하는 데 필요한 정보를 수집하는 것이 중요합니다. 향후 미국과 중국의 정책 변화가 글로벌 공급망에 미치는 영향을 지속적으로 모니터링하는 것이 필요합니다.
Original Article
Free trade isn’t coming back and here’s why - Asia Times
There was a time not so many years ago when Washington believed in free trade and raced to sign free trade agreements. Exporting sectors like agriculture were among the beneficiaries. They’d love to go back to those days.
Don’t hold your breath. Over the years, support for free trade was undermined by the loss of high-wage manufacturing jobs to industrial hollowing out. What put the nail in free-trade’s coffin, though, was the growing perception that China poses a threat to the United States, coupled with China’s increasing dominance of global manufacturing. It’s uncomfortable relying on a geopolitical adversary for critical goods.
In an important speech in late May, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that for too long the US ignored the national security implications of trade. It allowed its industrial base to erode, thinking it could always import whatever was needed.
Economic security is national security, he sai d, because “a nation that cannot manufacture, mine, shop or refine its needs gradually cedes its strength – and sovereignty – to others.”
Bessent was providing the intellectual underpinning for the administration’s tariff policy but it’s a rationale with which many Democrats would agree. Officials in the Biden administration, like then-Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, said similar things on several occasions.
In a way, Washington’s increasing interest in economic self-sufficiency is a reaction to Beijing’s. For many years now, Chinese policy statements have more or less explicitly said that China doesn’t want to depend on the world for anything.
Agriculture? The Chinese can’t grow enough soybeans at home, but they fear depending on imports, especially from the US. They have diversified and made Brazil their preferred supplier but they’re also working to reduce soybean consumption by developing fermented feeds for their pigs .
Manufacturing? China has succeeded in becoming what the US once was – a country that can make almost everything domestically. By investing big time in overcapacity, driving down prices and overwhelming competitors it has become the nearly exclusive manufacturer of many products.
Fear of losing access to critical goods was rising even before China cut the US off last year from critical rare-earth materials whose processing China dominates. The last three administrations have been committed to making more of what America consumes in America. Where the two parties differ is on how to go about it.
Both Trump administrations employed tariffs. Biden’s used a combination of targeted tariffs and government subsidies. But the goal – and the underlying fear – were the same.
It isn’t possible, though, to abandon interdependence altogether, and not just because of China’s manufacturing dominance. Specialization has made some countries so good at producing particular products that it’s nearly impossible for other countries to catch up.
Two acronyms exemplify the point:
ASML . This company, based in the Netherlands, makes the most sophisticated machines used to make the most sophisticated semiconductors. No other company anywhere can match its extreme ultraviolet lithography machines.They sell for hundreds of millions of dollars and without them production of high-end semiconductors would screech to a halt. It took decades for ASML to develop its techniques, which makes its monopoly hard to break.
TSMC . This company makes the world’s most sophisticated semiconductors at its home base in Taiwan. It is ASML’s biggest customer, but what really distinguishes it are a local network of suppliers and an engineering culture that competitors have found tough to match. TSMC has semiconductor fabs in other countries, including one in Arizona, but it makes the highest-end chips only in Taiwan.
Then there are the cases of near domination, like the Japanese firms that collectively have big market share in the obscure business of producing chemicals used in semiconductor production. Companies elsewhere have pieces of the action but many struggle to match the Japanese in purity and yield.
As these examples suggest, absolute autarky is unattainable. Even China can’t do what ASML and TSMC do. (It might be able to annex Taiwan someday, taking over TSMC, but it’s not likely to match TSMC otherwise. For starters, its companies can’t buy EUV machines because of US sanctions.)
In his speech Bessent conceded this point. He said there’s a difference between “dangerous overdependence” and “healthy interdependence.” The US, he admitted, will need “supply chains with trusted partners” for some products.
Problem is, the Trump administration has been slapping big tariffs on trusted partners, including those with specialized capabilities. The Biden administration’s tariffs targeted China. The Trump approach has been tariffs on almost all products from almost all countries in hopes of spurring a broad manufacturing renaissance.
Bessent played down the differences in approach. “Reasonable people can debate the calibration of any particular instrument,” he said. “But the central strategic insight is undoubtedly sound: trade policy, industrial capacity, and national security are inseparable.”
Because both parties have bought into that insight, farm groups pushing for a return to free – or at least freer – trade will have a difficult time prevailing.
Former longtime Wall Street Journal Asia correspondent and editor Urban Lehner is editor emeritus of DTN/The Progressive Farmer. This article, originally published on June 22 by the latter news organization and now republished by Asia Times with permission, is © Copyright 2026 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved. Follow Urban Lehner on X @urbanize .