Networks in Trade Wars
President Trump’s most recent move in the tense North Korea situation was a declaration that the United States could soon be stopping all trade with countries that do business with North Korea. This attempt to use economic consequences as a deterrent to North Korea’s escalation of its nuclear aggression is not without precedent, given the long history of economic sanctions that have been levied against the country in the past. However, this action hopes to be more effective than the lackluster enforcement of sanctions in the past by also threatening our own trading partners.
Although this move would have the impact it sets out to achieve if countries did take President Trump’s declaration seriously and ceased trade with North Korea, it will be economically disastrous for us if they did not and Trump followed through with his threat. A surprising amount of countries – many of them allies such as Germany, Brazil, and Mexico – still conduct trade with North Korea. And that is not to even mention China, which accounts for four-fifths of North Korea’s trade and is also our largest trading partner. According to the article, there is little hope for China to cease trade with North Korea. Aside from the albeit minor economic benefits China gets from this trade, the Chinese government fears that limiting their trade with North Korea would only make the situation more volatile. They have little incentive to stop trading.
Reading this article, I couldn’t help but think about how this trade situation – and others like it – could be modeled and analyzed using networks. Looking at trade relationships this way surely would have elucidated the problem behind President Trump’s proposed action by clearly modeling all the countries who have ties with North Korea and us. To highlight the likely impact of ceasing trade with North Korea’s trading partner, you could even use strong and weak ties to signify if a country is likely to cease trade with North Korea as a result of this action or if they’re likely to continue (respectively). Much like the example we looked at in class with the karate club, this would show two distinct groups and would allow someone to easily show what the US has to lose by following through with this action. This is an application of networks that I would love to explore further.