Despite the Balloon incident, Business between China and US is at a record high
Key takeaways:
- Business between China and US struck a record high last year, even as their diplomatic ties worsened.
Official figures show that business between China and US totalled $690.6bn (£572.6bn) in 2022.
Rising tensions between China and US after the balloon incident:
Ties between the nations have recently struck new lows after a Chinese balloon went across the US. Beijing refuses US claims it was used for spying.
The world’s two greatest economies have also been in a trade battle since 2018.
The new digits reveal that US imports from China rose to $536.8bn last year as American consumers spent more on Chinese-made things, including toys and cell phones.
US exports to China rose to $153.8bn in the same period.
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While some of the growth in business between the two nations is a result of the increasing cost of living, the figures also point to how reliant the US and China still are on each other, also after years of trade disputes between them.
“I think it’s an essential indication of the problems of actually decoupling,” Deborah Elms, the founder of the Asian Trade Centre, told the BBC.
“Even if governments, businesses and shoppers wanted to separate, the economics make it is challenging to deliver products in a decoupled world at a cost that firms and consumers are ready to pay,” she continued.
Trade relations between China and US under Donald Trump:
In 2018, the Trump regime began to ramp up trade actions against Beijing.
After decades of increasing Chinese imports, Mr Trump started charging taxes on more than $300bn worth of Chinese things. China struck back by placing import levies on around $100bn of American goods.
After Joe Biden became president, most of those criteria remained for over two years.
This month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due to visit China in what was witnessed as a thawing of ties between the two nations.
