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The United States buys far more from China than it sells there, and has tried since 2018 to change that with tariffs. In the spring of 2025 duties on both sides rose above a hundred percent within weeks, which would have ended trade between the two, before truces brought them down. They remain far higher than before 2018. Chinese goods now reach America through third countries, and the goods that no longer go to America go everywhere else.
The wider rivalry and each side's full account: The United States and China.
The two governments are negotiating a reciprocal reduction of tariffs on about thirty billion dollars of goods ahead of the next leaders' meeting. Washington is at the same time considering new duties on goods it says China overproduces, has put tariffs on drones and their parts, and has accused some forty countries of helping Chinese exporters disguise the origin of their goods.
The imbalance. China makes about a third of the world's manufactured goods and consumes much less. The rest must be sold abroad. Americans call that a policy; Chinese call it competitiveness.
The tool. Tariffs are a tax paid at the American border. Whether the exporter, the importer or the shopper ends up paying is argued over; that trade has been rerouted rather than reduced is not.
Who else pays. Mexico, Vietnam, India and others gained factories as firms left China, and are now accused of being a back door. Europe fears becoming the dumping ground.
China's surplus is the result of subsidies, a suppressed currency, stolen technology and a closed home market. It hollowed out American industry and left the country dependent on a rival for medicines, electronics and ships. Tariffs bring in revenue, bring factories back and bring China to the table. Countries that let Chinese goods pass through to dodge them will be treated the same way.
Unilateral tariffs break the rules America wrote. They are paid by American families and companies, and they have not reduced America's deficit with the world by a dollar. China's goods sell because they are good and cheap. China did not start this, matches every measure, and has found other markets.
Washington's leaves out that its trade deficit is as large as before, that the tariffs raised costs for its own manufacturers, and that the farm purchases it demands are what it lost by starting the fight.
Beijing's leaves out the subsidies and cheap state credit behind its exporters, the price wars that bankrupt its own firms, and consumers at home who are not allowed to buy what they make.
Third countries' leaves out the business they have done relabelling Chinese goods.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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They are hit by American tariffs, swamped by diverted Chinese exports, and then blamed for the trade that results. Rules they relied on are being replaced by whatever two capitals agree between themselves.