Michael Zezas: Policy Pressure from the U.S. to China

The Biden administration recently imposed new trade restrictions on exports to China, but what sectors will be impacted and will we continue to see more policy pressure from the U.S. to China?

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Welcome to Thoughts on the market. I'm Michael Zezas, Head of Global Thematic and Public Policy Research for Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, I'll be talking about the intersection between U.S. public policy and financial markets. It's Tuesday, October 25th, at 10 a.m. in New York. 

On October 7th, the Biden administration announced another round of controls on the export of advanced computing and semiconductor equipment to China. The stated goal is to protect U.S. national security and foreign policy interests by limiting China's ability to develop cutting edge chip and computing technology. This news drove volatility in equity markets in China recently, but we think it shouldn't come as a surprise to investors. In fact, we argue that investors should expect the U.S. to continue pressing forward with trade restrictions on China. 

It's all part of our slowbalization and multipolar world frameworks. In short, as China's economy grows into a legit challenger to U.S. hegemony, U.S. policy has changed to protect its economic and military advantages. Export controls are one of those policies springing from a law passed in 2018, one of the few pieces of legislation that received bipartisan support during the Trump administration. And this law gives broad authority to the executive branch to decide what's in scope for export restrictions. So as the competition between the U.S. and China grows and new technologies over time become old technologies, expect export controls and other non-tariff barriers to spread across multiple industries. Other policy barriers could arise, too. As we've stated in prior podcasts, we still see scope for Congress to create an outbound investment control function for the White House. All in all, the net result is a managed delinking of the U.S. and China economies in some key sectors. 

For investors, the read through is clear; the policy pressure from the U.S. and China is unlikely to abate any time soon. The bad news from this? It means new costs to fund the supply chains that will have to be built, a particular challenge for tech hardware companies globally. The good news? This isn't a hard decoupling of the U.S. and China. Slowly but surely, these measures set up new rules of engagement and coexistence for the U.S. and China economies, meaning the worst outcomes for the global economy are likely to be avoided. 

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