Trade Surplus and Trade War

Is it possible for a country to strive for both a trade surplus and a healthy inflow of capital from abroad? 

A country cannot have both trade surplus along with the healthy inflow of capital from abroad because when a country experiences a trade surplus, the amount of its exports exceeds imports, and due to this, the outflow of domestic capital or costs increases resulting in higher prices within an economy. With less money circulating, it will affect the number of goods and services that the country can produce. Although trade surplus can create employment and economic growth, as the price increases it will just eventually lead to lower future income as it is just a temporary status and the money always goes back to the country. Thus, it is also impossible to have a healthy inflow of capital from abroad as some countries implement trade barriers as a practice to protect the country's domestic industries and hinder foreign competition to enter by having high taxing imports. 

What sort of impact does a trade war would have on the economies of other nations? How do a trade war might affect our nation’s relationships with other nations? 

A trade war happens when there’s an economic conflict between countries. This results in both countries imposing trade protectionist policies against one another in the form of trade barriers. With these trade tensions, the rate of trading across borders or internationally will decrease and for the developing countries, this will be a huge impact on their economy as it will disrupt the global supply chain and they will be having a difficult time keeping up as well as manage to trade across the countries. Moreover, due to trade wars, will also influence the relations of countries negatively as it will be complicated for the countries in wars to negotiate and come up with the same policies and agreements that will be beneficial for both of them. These conflicts, will just greatly affect the developing countries more than developed countries as they don’t have enough capacity to sustain the needs of their country and depend on their relations with other nations in order to obtain economic growth. In the end, there will be no winners in having trade wars as it will just prevent the countries to become economically powerful. In addition, promoting diplomatic solutions to these international problems will be a long process to undergo.