## HOW TO WIN A TRADE WAR

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**Canonical URL:** [HOW TO WIN A TRADE WAR](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2026/06/books-van-heuvelen.pdf)

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### Overview
- Book title: HOW TO WIN A TRADE WAR: An Optimistic Guide to an Anxious Global Economy
- Authors: Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown
- Publisher details as presented: Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 2026, 288 pp., $30
- Reviewed by: Elizabeth Van Heuvelen, senior economist in the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department
- Context: Review published in JUNE 2026 issue of F&D

### Diagnosis of current trade tensions
- Long-running frictions stem from subsidies and structural imbalances between surplus and deficit economies.
- Multilateral rules were never designed to fully address these frictions.
- The pandemic exposed fragility of global supply chains, prompting governments to rethink the trade-off between efficiency and resilience.
- The rise of industrial policy and trade intervention in the name of national security has shifted the debate away from market access toward strategic competition.

### Defensive toolkit: resilience and subsidies
- Central defensive strategies proposed:
  - Managing supply-chain resilience.
  - Tweaking subsidies.
- Trade-offs emphasized:
  - Balancing resilience and efficiency is difficult in practice; calibrating supply chains is likened to deciphering a teenager’s mood.
  - Stockpiling can ease pressure on supply chains but identifying true crises and timing drawdowns is difficult (authors’ analogy to “preppers”).
  - Subsidies require careful calibration: “Mastering subsidies is like baking a cake”; policymakers should not “over-cater” because spillovers can leave bystanders worse off (analogy: a food fight at a chaotic dinner).

### Offensive tools: tariffs and export controls
- Tariffs and export controls are examined with nuance:
  - Import restrictions are compared to pharmaceuticals: policymakers may have a “drug of choice” but are urged to “use responsibly.”
  - The book explains both the logic and the limits of tariffs, including why retaliation does not always follow expected patterns.
  - Authors candidly concede that “being mean can pay off,” acknowledging tariffs can be an effective, if blunt, negotiating tool.

### Multilateral rules and international cooperation
- The authors express diminished optimism about multilateral rules:
  - Previously advocated multilateral rules “no longer enjoy the necessary backing and rigor to prevent conflict.”
  - Multilateral institutions are portrayed as helpless in the face of current tensions.

### Tone and contribution
- The book is engaging and uses humorous analogies to clarify abstruse economic concepts.
- It does not promise easy answers; instead it provides:
  - An honest reckoning of policy trade-offs.
  - A rigorous, accessible map of the terrain for readers seeking to understand conflicts reshaping the global trading system.
- Reviewer verdict: “For anyone trying to make sense of the conflicts reshaping the global trading system, this is an essential guide.”

*JUNE 2026, F&D — Elizabeth Van Heuvelen*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2026/06/books-van-heuvelen.pdf_