China–United States trade war

An economic conflict between China and the United States has been ongoing since January 2018, when U.S. president Donald Trump began imposing tariffs and other trade barriers on China with the aim of forcing it to make changes to what the U.S. has said are longstanding unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft.^[1] The first Trump administration stated that these practices may contribute to the U.S.–China trade deficit, and that the Chinese government requires the transfer of American technology to China.^[2] In response to the trade measures, CCP general secretary Xi Jinping's administration accused the Trump administration of engaging in nationalist protectionism and took retaliatory action.^[3][4] Following the trade war's escalation through 2019, the two sides reached a tense phase-one agreement in January 2020;^[5][6][7] however, a temporary collapse in goods trade around the globe during the Covid-19 pandemic together with a short recession diminished the chance of meeting the target, China failed to buy the $200 billion worth of additional imports specified as part of it. By the end of Trump's first presidency, the trade war was widely characterized by American media outlets as a failure for the United States.^[8][9]

The Biden administration kept the tariffs in place and added additional levies on Chinese goods such as electric vehicles and solar panels.^[10][11][12] In 2024, the Trump presidential campaign proposed a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.^[13]

2025 marked a significant escalation of the conflict under the second Trump administration. A series of increasing tariffs led to the U.S. imposing a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, and China imposing a 125% tariff on American goods in response; these measures are forecast to cause a 0.2% loss of global merchandise trade.^[14][15][16] Despite this, both countries have excluded certain items from their tariff lists and continue to try and find a resolution to the trade war.^[17][18]