China–US Economic and Trade Relations: Trump and Beyond

Abstract

In the final year of Trump’s tenure, China and the US put the trade war on hold by signing their phase-one economic and trade agreement, but the COVID-19 pandemic has brought new challenges to the China–US economic and trade relations. The US trade and economic policies toward China advocated by Trump had to be suspended due to his failure to win the re-election, demonstrating that his economic and trade strategy for China has ended in failure. However, the succeeding Biden administration has not totally abandoned the overall design of Trump’s economic and trade policies toward China, and has continued the core policies of imposing additional tariffs on China and maintaining the US economic competitive advantage. After the collision during the Trump administration, the China–US economic and trade relations still show the fundamental characteristics of complementarity and mutual benefit. Under the Biden administration, the renewal of the phase-one economic and trade agreement, the transformation of the economic alliance, the security of the supply chain, the coordination of global economic issues in the post-pandemic era, etc. will become the new focuses of China–US economic and trade relations.