{"id":10491,"date":"2020-07-29T11:37:04","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T08:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/palthink.org\/en\/?p=10491"},"modified":"2020-07-29T11:38:20","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T08:38:20","slug":"the-impact-of-covid-19-pandemic-on-the-u-s-china-trade-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/palthink.org\/en\/2020\/07\/10491\/","title":{"rendered":"The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the U.S \u2013 China Trade War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An insight<\/strong> into the Trade War <\/strong>between US and China <\/strong>by Bashar Fteiha.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The mutual blame over the origins of COVID-19 between the US and China has led many to believe that the world\u2019s two largest economic powers are at the verge of another trade war. The issue of economic ties with China arose as a paramount theme of Trump\u2019s presidency. On multiple occasions, President Trump clearly accused China of intellectual property theft<\/strong>, forced technology, currency manipulation and state subsidies. One of the driving forces which sparked the trade war was China\u2019s unprecedented ability to become, in a very short amount of time, an economic giant <\/strong>as well as the world\u2019s main leader in artificial intelligence and telecommunications technology.<\/span><\/p>\n

As soon as President Donald Trump took over the Oval Office in November 2016, he adopted a hostile approach towards China. Between July 2018 and May 2019, President Trump imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion worth of Chinese products<\/strong> with duties ranging between 10 percent and 25 percent. In response to US tariffs, China decided to retaliate by imposing tit-for-tat tariffs on some US products, ranging from 5 percent to 25 percent on US goods worth $110 billion. As this stage, it was clear that the two countries had entered into fierce competition, which resulted in countless rounds of negotiations, several amendments to the tit-for-tat tariffs and various technology restrictions. Such fierce competition generated trade tensions that almost led the world\u2019s two largest economic powers to the brink of a full-blown trade war.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following intensive rounds of back-and-forth negotiations, however, the US and China reached a \u2018phase one\u2019 trade deal in December 2019 , which took effect in February 2020. That trade agreement centred around the following issues: trade deficits, Intellectual Property and \u2018forced\u2019 technology transfer. According to \u2018phase one\u2019 of the trade deal, US and China agreed to reduce some of the tariffs each side had imposed with respect to the other in the period between July 2018 and November 2019. In particular, the US agreed to exempt Chinese products from a list of tariffs and reduce specific tariffs from 15 percent to 7.5 percent on Chinese products worth $160 billion<\/strong>. Meanwhile, China pledged to increase imports of services and industrial products from the US by $200 billion over the proceeding two years.<\/span><\/p>\n

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