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The tariff relationship moved through escalation and partial de-escalation. The United States opened Section 301 investigations covering China and a number of other trading partners; a domestic court ruling narrowed the tariff authority those measures rest on; and the Beijing summit produced reciprocal reductions on some goods together with renewed agricultural access. China applied countermeasures of its own, barring government procurement from dozens of US companies and keeping retaliation in reserve. Disputes also run through specific sectors: Chinese electric vehicles and the question of their access to the US market, soybean and beef purchases, and tariff evasion through third countries. Coverage divides less evenly here than elsewhere in the dyad. Chinese state media frame the measures as unilateral coercion outside the multilateral system. Western coverage is predominantly skeptical of the campaign — arguing it has raised costs and uncertainty for US industry and farmers while strengthening Beijing's position — and an argument that tariff pressure is producing results is comparatively rare in headline coverage.
Each card below is one coalition with its own frame on the same contested phenomenon.
Weekly attributed-headline count per narrative. Visual asymmetry is signal: some coalitions dominate the vocabulary, others stay sporadic.
Loaded vocabulary per coalition and recent headlines under each frame.
Per-week distribution of events on this friction node. Click a bar to see that week's top events.
Click a week bar to select. Light blue = active week.
Countries directly involved in these tensions, or whose own outlets cover them.
Western and allied coverage arguing that tariff pressure and Section 301 probes are the instrument that produced results — reciprocal tariff reductions, renewed US beef and soybean access, an aircraft order — and that they answer a durable trade deficit, subsidised overcapacity and restricted market access.
Western business and mainstream coverage — and US industry itself — arguing that the tariff campaign imposes costs at home, injects legal and planning uncertainty after the Supreme Court ruling, and strengthens Beijing's hand: automakers pressing to keep or lift restrictions on their own terms, farm exporters exposed to retaliation, and allies hedging toward China. Same publisher bloc as the leverage stance, so framing separates them.
Chinese state media framing of tariffs and Section 301 probes as unilateralism and abuse of process rather than as a response to any imbalance: measures taken outside the multilateral system, harmful to all parties, and aimed at suppressing a competitor.
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