US-China trade: Winners, losers, and lessons

The US-China trade war began in March 2018 when then-President Donald Trump introduced a 25 percent import tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

- AJAY SRIVASTAVA

The tariffs were later extended to cover hundreds of Chinese goods in an effort to address the trade imbalance and protect US industries.

Now, with President-elect Trump planning new tariffs on Mexico, Canada, China, and others, it is interesting to examine how America's earlier tariffs and other trade restrictions affected global trade over the past six years. Who are the biggest winners and losers of the trade war? To find out, we tracked changes in global trade between 2017 (year before the trade war began) and 2023 (the latest available data). The results are surprising.

Rising US imports: When the US imposed tariffs, it expected fewer imports from China and the world, and a revival of American manufacturing. Between 2017 and 2023, US imports from China dropped by $81.56 billion, from $519.52 billion to $437.96 billion. However, overall US imports rose by 31.51 percent, increasing from $2.31 trillion to $3.04 trillion—an additional $763.2 billion, nearly ten times the drop in imports from China. This highlights erosion of the US manufacturing competitiveness. Meanwhile, China expanded its global exports by an impressive $1.1 trillion, from $2.3 trillion to $3.4 trillion. US exports grew by $383 billion, from $1.31 trillion to $1.69 trillion.