After months of escalation, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping came to a truce at the beginning of 2020, signing what’s known as the Phase One agreement. It reduced the rate of some of the tariffs, but left them in place, and China agreed to increase its purchases of US goods and agricultural products — setting an ambitious target of buying $200 billion more than it did before the trade war began.
But it’s becoming clear that China has failed to meet those targets. It’s on track to purchase only 60% of the goods it committed to buy, according to Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who tracks China’s purchases.
Biden suggested recently that’s the reason he’s leaving the tariffs in place, despite pressure from the American business community to remove them as companies struggle with inflation and supply chain disruptions. US importers have paid nearly $123 billion to cover the cost of the China tariffs since 2018, according to US Customs and Border Protection.
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