Sovereignty as Trade Escalation Tool

Leaders can turn routine tariff disputes into existential crises by invoking sovereignty language, which alters the parties’ cost–benefit calculations and makes compromise politically costly. That rhetorical move converts an economic negotiation into a question of national survival, increasing the chance of prolonged retaliation and politicized deadlock. — If sovereignty talk becomes a common response to economic coercion, trade negotiations will be harder to resolve and more likely to produce lasting political rifts and national-security framing.