Advertisement
Opinion | Time for Biden to end the senseless, self-defeating US trade war with China
- Four years on, the trade war is still hurting US consumers and companies, and forcing supply chain workarounds that make trade more complex and vulnerable
- Worst of all, it has cost up to 245,000 American jobs and fuelled US inflation. Biden needs to realise there are no winners
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
31
A survey conducted in March revealed that 71 per cent of Americans continued to support the trade war against China that began in 2018. After four years, who is winning?
Advertisement
Is it former president Donald Trump, who started the trade war against China by imposing an additional 25 per cent import tariff in 2018? Is it current US President Joe Biden, who has so far refused to end the trade war?
Is it the Chinese manufacturers, which have dodged the increased tariffs by changing the “country of origin”? Or is it the American firms that have labelled their Chinese imports as coming from Mexico, which attracts no import tariff under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement?
This trade war has certainly benefited the consulting firms, law firms and shipping companies that are helping Chinese exporters and US importers find workarounds to avoid the increased tariffs. But these workarounds are making global supply chains even more complex and vulnerable.
At the end of the day, this trade war has no winners. It’s time to call it quits.
Advertisement
The US trade war against China has proved to be futile at best and self-defeating at worst. The reality is that the US will continue to rely on products imported from China for now.
Advertisement