Editorial | US should review its flawed trade policy
- After a year in office, Joe Biden is yet to move away from the destructive tariffs of his predecessor and it is the Americans who are suffering, not the Chinese
Rather than formulating its own China policy, the Biden administration has instead toughened the approach it inherited from Trump. More Chinese companies and entities have been sanctioned and efforts made to coerce allies to join its bid to economically and politically isolate Beijing.
But the strategy has flopped, if growth rates and import and export data are proof; China’s gross domestic product expanded 8.1 per cent year on year in 2021, the fastest in a decade, and its global trade surplus grew to US$676 billion, likely the highest for any country. The amount that China’s exports to the US exceeded imports rose 25.1 per cent from a year earlier to US$396.6 billion.
Although the surplus has long been an irritant in relations for Washington, there has been scant mention of it as the US struggles with the coronavirus. American inflation has hit 7 per cent, the highest since 1982, rising costs in part the result of supply chain disruptions and the passing on of tariffs by importers to consumers.