Many of Trump's campaign pledges centered on retooling the United States' trade partnerships, for instance by renegotiating NAFTA or scrapping the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact. While the United States is turning its focus inward, Beijing is trying to exert its influence as a global leader. To achieve its desired results with China, the Trump administration will have to pry into and challenge Beijing's own economic policies. For one thing, the United States' most fervent trade disagreements with Japan took place before the creation of the WTO and its relatively strong bilateral trade dispute mechanism. Tokyo's favored means of dispute resolution -- voluntary caps on its exports to the United States -- have since been banned.

Source: Forbes January 17, 2017 18:10 UTC