U.S.-China trade has grown dramatically in the two decades since China joined the World Trade Organization. This trade has benefited U.S. consumers and companies, but Beijing’s state-led development has created a range of problems, including widespread job losses attributed to intense competition in key sectors with Chinese imports and globally for US exporters.

U.S. trade in goods with China totalled an estimated $659.3 billion in 2021. Exports were $154.4 billion; imports were $504.9 billion. The U.S. goods trade deficit with China was $353.5 billion in 2021. China was the third largest US goods trading partner in 2021, just behind Canada and Mexico. 

In 2021, China was the third largest partner for EU exports of goods (10.2 %) and the largest partner for EU imports of goods (22.4 %). Among EU Member States, the Netherlands was the largest importer of goods from China and Germany was the largest exporter of goods to China in 2021. The European Union's trade deficit with China grew by over a third in 2021. Imports from China to the EU jumped by more than a fifth to 472 billion euros ($522 billion) compared to 2020, Eurostat data shows, widening the bloc's trade deficit with the country to 249 billion euros. EU exports to China grew by 10%, a significantly faster rate than to other countries outside the bloc.

Russia’s emergence as a hostile, militarily aggressive power in Europe, clearly moving into Beijing’s orbit, poses difficult questions about the how the West should respond and organize itself, and serves to underline the interplay between geopolitical interests and economics and trade which have long been front to mind in assessing US China and EU China choices, risks and trade offs. Sanctions and restrictions may hurt sanctioned and restricted economies, but interference with market supply and demand has consequences for prices, consumer interests and economic and social stability in the countries taking the geopolitical high ground.

Is the world moving towards a system of regional political and economic blocs, (China + Russia and the US + Europe) heavily armed and permanently in competition for technological leadership and access to key mineral and food resources? And if so what will become of the global trading order that has developed since the second world war, and in particular since the accession of China to the WTO in 2001.

This question will be resolved by comparing the aggregate of US and EU 2022 trade in goods data as a benchmark against the same data in 2023. US-China trade figures will be drawn from the US Census Bureau's data and the EU-China figures from EUROSTAT.