Since the beginning of 2018, the United States has introduced new tariffs on imports from several trading partners, citing either national security concerns, unfair trade practices, or serious injury to domestic industries. Initially, protectionist measures targeted specific products such as washing machines, solar panels, steel and aluminium and were imposed on imports from most trading partners. Additional tariffs were imposed on imports of certain products from China, which, following a tit-fortat escalation of the dispute, now cover close to all bilateral trade between the two countries. 1 If threatened tariffs on automobiles and parts materialise, they will cause serious disruptions to tightly integrated regional and global value chains (GVCs) and, together with previous measures, impact close to one-third of all US imports.Faced with protectionist measures, numerous trading partners (such as China, Canada, Mexico, EU and Turkey) retaliated against higher US tariffs, while others (such as the Republic of Korea and India) did not. 2 In fact, apart from the trade disputes with the United States, there is no evidence of a worldwide increase in the number of protectionist measures. During the same period, the average number of trade-restrictive measures implemented by G20 economies has declined and remained below the 2012-15 trends (WTO, 2018). Most major economies have continued liberalisation efforts, pursuing market access opportunities under regional trade agreements (RTAs). Since the beginning of 2017, there have been 10 RTAs that entered into force, such as those between the EU and Canada, Canada and Ukraine, China and Georgia, and the EU and many countries. After US withdrawal from 1 As Bown (2019) notes, China's average tariff on US goods was to increase to 25.9% in December 2019, in contrast to the average tariff of 8% in January 2018, before the trade war. Likewise, the average US tariff on goods from China increased to 26.6% in December 2019, up from 3.1% before the trade war.2 See Bown & Kolb (2020) for an up-to-date description of the U.S. trade war.