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The Review of Economics and Statistics 2026

Is American Soft Power a Casualty of the Trade War? Evidence from U.S. Movie Viewership in China

Haichao Fan1; Yichuan Hu2; Lixin Tang3; Shang‐Jin Wei4

1 School of Economics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China [email protected] · 2 School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai, China [email protected] · 3 Institute for Economic and Social Research, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China [email protected] · 4 Columbia University, New York, New York, USA [email protected]

Abstract

The US trade war against China can either enhance or diminish American soft power in China, depending on whether Chinese citizens view it as legitimate. We study how US movie viewership, a measure of American soft power, responds to the trade war. We find a significantly greater reduction in US movie viewership in regions more exposed to the Trump tariffs, but no corresponding decline in non-US movies. The decline is stronger for action and drama movies, which tend to embody greater perceived “Americanness.” Survey data also show a sharper decline in trust in Americans in more tariff-exposed regions.

DOI
10.1162/rest.a.1877
Pages
1-37
Language
en
Sources
crossref

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