On the afternoon of October 9, 2025, WTO Chair at UIBE hosted a special academic lecture in Classroom 505 of the Research Building. Researcher Xu Qiyuan, Deputy Director of the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IASS-CASS), was invited as the keynote speaker. With the theme "The International Economic and Trade Order Under the Trump Shock," he shared his latest research results and in-depth insights, attracting nearly 50 teachers and students to participate.

At the beginning of the lecture, WTO Chair at UIBE extended a warm welcome to Director Xu. Director Xu has long been engaged in research on China's macroeconomy, China-US economic and trade relations, global supply chain restructuring, RMB internationalization, and RMB exchange rate issues. He has published academic works such as Reshaping Global Industrial Chains: China's Choices, Facing the China-US Trade Conflict, and China Financial Opening-Up Report: Perceiving Policy Issues. He also holds concurrent positions including Member of the Advisory Committee of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), Co-Convenor of the Expert Group on Updating the Strategic Directions for ASEAN+3 Financial Cooperation, and Member of the Bretton Woods Committee.

Director Xu conducted a systematic analysis around the multiple evolving patterns of the international economic and trade order. When analyzing the impact of Trump's tariff policy at the enterprise and national levels, Director Xu pointed out that enterprises currently generally adopt a "cost minimization" strategy, i.e., maintaining compliant operations with the minimum resource input under policy uncertainty. At the national level, most countries also mainly respond with "cost minimization"—for example, the framework investment agreements signed by the EU, Japan, and other countries with the United States are mostly non-binding intentions, with considerable flexibility in practical implementation.

Addressing the core issue of "Can China and the US Isolate Each Other," Director Xu stated that "neither side can effectively isolate the other." He emphasized that Trump's tariff policy is not targeted solely at China, but stems from overall dissatisfaction with the global financial, trade, and security order. The substantive goals of his policy are to "increase fiscal revenue" and "promote manufacturing reshoring." Therefore, the United States cannot impose excessively high tariffs on China to avoid losing tax revenue due to zero trade, nor can it impose excessively low tariffs on other economies to prevent manufacturing from shifting to third parties. Considering the current divergences of interests among allies and domestic inflationary pressures, the United States cannot achieve isolation of China through tariff measures, and the EU, Southeast Asian countries, and others also struggle to form effective countermeasures against the United States.

During the interactive session, teachers and students actively raised questions on topics such as "the impact of U.S. port measures on supply chains," "China's bearable tariff rate," "the reasons for the scarcity of Chinese automobiles in the Vietnamese market," and "the sustainability of RMB internationalization." Director Xu provided detailed answers to each question one by one.

This lecture provided a platform for teachers and students of WTO Chair at UIBE to communicate with top scholars in the field of international economics and trade, helping them gain a deeper understanding of the evolution of the current international economic and trade pattern and grasp the trends of global industrial chain and trade order restructuring.