This week, the mercurial magnate said 10 percent tariffs on all Chinese imports could kick in on February 1 — and on the campaign trail touted a levy as high as 60 percent.
China has warned that there are “no winners” in a trade war and vowed to defend its economic interests.
Here’s where the China-US trade relationship stands:
Trade between China and the United States — the world’s two largest economies — is vast, totalling more than $530 billion in the first eleven months of 2024, according to Washington.
Over that same period, sales of Chinese goods to the United States totalled more than $400 billion, second only to Mexico.
According to the Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE), China is the dominant supplier of goods from electronics and electrical machinery, to textiles and clothing.
But a yawning trade imbalance — $270.4 billion for January to November last year — has long raised hackles in Washington.
As has China’s vast state support for its industry, sparking accusations of dumping, as well as its perceived mistreatment of US firms operating in its territory.
But China’s economy remains heavily reliant on exports to drive growth despite official efforts to raise domestic consumption — making its leaders reluctant to change the status quo.
Trump stormed into the White House in 2016 vowing to get even with China, launching a trade war that slapped significant tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods.
China responded with retaliatory tariffs on American products — particularly affecting US farmers.
Key US demands were greater access to China’s markets, broad reform of a business playing field that heavily favours Chinese firms, and a loosening of heavy state control by Beijing.
After long, fraught negotiations the two sides agreed what became known as the “phase one” trade deal — a ceasefire in the nearly two-year-old trade war.
Under that agreement, Beijing agreed to import $200 billion worth of US goods, including $32 billion in farm products and seafood.
But in the face of the pandemic and a US recession, analysts say Beijing fell well short of that commitment.
“In the end, China bought only 58 percent of the US exports it had committed to purchase under the agreement, not even enough to reach its import levels from before the trade war,” PIIE’S Chad P Brown wrote.
“Put differently, China bought none of the additional $200 billion of exports Trump’s deal had promised.”
Trump’s successor Joe Biden did not roll back increases imposed by his predecessor, but took a more targeted approach when it came to tariff hikes.
Under Biden, Washington expanded efforts to curb exports of state-of-the-art chips to China — part of a broader effort to prevent sensitive US technologies being used in Beijing’s military arsenal.
