{"id":222192,"date":"2025-10-18T12:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T12:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/222192\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T12:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T12:27:08","slug":"how-china-tightens-the-screws-in-trade-war-with-the-us-dw-10-18-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/222192\/","title":{"rendered":"How China tightens the screws in trade war with the US \u2013 DW \u2013 10\/18\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recent picture that’s gone viral<\/a> in the United States\u00a0captures the prevailing mood among Americans: a clear plastic bag containing an American flag, labeled “Made in China.”<\/p>\n

For supporters of US President Donald Trump<\/a>, it’s proof that something is deeply wrong with the US economy<\/a>. They’ve called on “patriots” to boycott Chinese goods.<\/p>\n

\"ATrump’s dilemma \u2014 the US economy cannot do without China-made productsImage: X\/@joemccuiston<\/p>\n

But can America really afford to cut ties? Is\u00a0the free flow of mutually traded\u00a0goods like rare earths<\/a>, smartphones<\/a>, soybeans\u00a0and microchips<\/a> at risk of\u00a0becoming\u00a0a victim of the\u00a0fight for geopolitical dominance?<\/p>\n

Deep economic ties<\/p>\n

Were all trade between the two\u00a0world powers to cease, experts say the US economy would struggle more than Chinese economy<\/a>. Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C. said the mutual dependence of both sides “remains quite high.”<\/p>\n

“Despite economic security concerns, both sides still gain significantly from trade,” he told DW.<\/p>\n

However, the US-China trade<\/a>\u00a0gap\u00a0is quite significant. Over the past decade, the US trade deficit with China has widened from $295 billion (\u20ac252 billion) to $382 billion. In 2024, China exported goods worth $526 billion to the US \u2014 more than triple what it imported.<\/p>\n

Chinese products are part of everyday life in America. Of those imports, $127 billion were smartphones and computers. Any new tariffs would hit US consumers directly.<\/p>\n

Of tariffs and counter-tariffs<\/p>\n

Trump’s 100% tariffs<\/a> have angered Beijing, but unlike Europe, China is responding with defiance<\/a>. Government officials in Beijing have vowed to “fight to the end” and urged Washington to “correct its approach,” warning in an October 13 statement on social media platform\u00a0X<\/a> that “threatening high tariffs is not the right way to deal with China.”<\/p>\n

Beijing has already retaliated by imposing counter-tariffs and export restrictions, including on the rare-earth minerals<\/a> critical to electric vehicles<\/a>, semiconductors\u00a0and defense technology. The US depends on imports for more than 90% of its rare earth supply \u2014 over 80% of which comes from China. Beijing controls about 60% of global rare-earth production and nearly 90% of refining capacity.<\/p>\n

The US-China rift extends beyond minerals. Since May, China hasn’t bought a single soybean from the US, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Last year, those exports were worth nearly $13 billion. Now, China buys from Brazil and Argentina instead.<\/p>\n

The soybean boycott and rare-earth restrictions are Beijing’s response to Washington’s tightening chip export controls, first imposed in 2022 to curb China’s access to advanced technology and artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Christina Otte from the German state-run foreign investment agency,\u00a0Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), argues the US is likely more dependent on China than the other way around.<\/p>\n

“While the US remains a key market for Chinese goods, its importance has steadily declined since Trump’s first term,” she told DW.<\/p>\n

New markets, new strategy<\/p>\n

According to news agency Bloomberg, China has successfully redirected exports once bound for the US to other regions.<\/p>\n

Between September 2024 and September 2025, shipments to Africa rose 56%, the agency reported\u00a0\u2014\u00a0to Southeast Asia 16%, to the EU 14%, and to Latin America 15%.<\/p>\n

“The US now ranks behind ASEAN [Southeast Asian trade bloc] and roughly on par with the EU,” said Otte. “In the first half of 2025, bilateral trade fell more than 10% year over year.”<\/p>\n

Chinese firms are also “expanding production in countries like Vietnam and Malaysia to keep supplying the US market indirectly,” she added.<\/p>\n

In addition, China is also cutting financial ties to the heavily indebted US. Its holdings of US Treasury securities have dropped from $1.3 trillion in 2013 to $765 billion this year, according to data from the US Federal Reserve<\/a>. China now ranks behind Japan and the UK among foreign holders of US debt.<\/p>\n

‘Chimerica’ still standing<\/p>\n

Despite this slow disengagement, trade remains crucial for the two superpowers.<\/p>\n

“China still relies on US supplies in aerospace, high-performance chips\u00a0and semiconductors,” said Kennedy, adding that Chinese products, in turn, remain deeply embedded in American supply chains.<\/p>\n

Chinese President Xi Jinping<\/a> and Donald Trump are expected to meet later this month at the APEC<\/a> Summit in Gyeongju, South Korea. Both sides hope to ease tensions before the tariff spiral spins further out of control.<\/p>\n

Kennedy is optimistic, stressing that the US-China relationship is “still quite resilient.”<\/p>\n

“Chimerica” is the term he uses to describe US-Chinese interdependency, which\u00a0may be “bruised, but it’s not dead \u2014 and it won’t disappear easily.”<\/p>\n

This article was originally written in German.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recent picture that’s gone viral in the United States\u00a0captures the prevailing mood among Americans: a clear plastic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-222192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}