The state of U.S.-China trade
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What is the current state of the U.S.–China trade war and why are tariffs still relevant?
Oh look, trade and tariffs back in the news from American public media. This is Market Place.
In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizda, Monday. Today, 21 September. Good as it always is to have you along, everybody. We're gonna mostly take a pass on the old standbys this week, jobs and inflation and data. And we are turning for our economic through line instead to foreign affairs. China's president Xi Jinping is headed to Washington this week. Our slice of it, at least to start, is the on again, off again, on again, off again trade war between the two biggest economies in the world.
How have U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods changed since their 2023 peak?
And if you have lost track of where things stand, join the Club. Marketplace Justin Ho gets us going with a refresher.
It wasn't too long ago that tariffs on Chinese goods were skyrocketing. Back in the spring of last year. US tariffs on Chinese goods reached a hundred and forty-five percent at their peak. Megan Schoenberger, a senior economist with KPMG. She says China was hitting back too. Reciprocal tariffs on US goods reached 125%. But in the time since, tariffs have come down. Ed Gresser with the Progressive Policy Institute says when you average the tariffs that are in place right now
Most of the things you're buying in a store that are Chinese made will have a you know about a twenty to thirty percent tariff, uh depending on the type of product.
Gresser says that's still higher than tariffs were during the Biden administration. But he says it is a sign that the trade war is on hold.
It's not like issues are settled. It's more like Both sides have been bloodied a bit and are feeling it in their best interest to gonna not continue that for a while.
Imports from China have been picking up this year. Megan Schoenberg with KPMG says that's been fueled by demand for computers, data storage devices, and other components needed to build out AI infrastructure.
It is the main driver of why we see a larger trade deficit in the most recent numbers. And a lot of these products, importantly, are exempted from tariffs.
But exports to China have not been very strong. Earlier this year, China said it would buy about twenty five million metric tons of American soybeans. But Naomi Bloom with Total Farm Marketing says at this point
China has purchased Approximately half of that.
The Trump administration has also claimed that China will purchase about seventeen billion dollars worth of cotton, sorghum, corn, and other ag products. Bloom says that would be a huge relief for American farmers.
When you have over six dollar diesel, the farmers are still not making money because they're getting ready to harvest and you know some of those combines Take three hundred to four hundred gallons of diesel.
But so far, Bloom says China hasn't really shown up. I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace.
Three hundred gallons of diesel at six bucks a whack, right? Wall Street today. Well my goodness, traders were in quite a good mood. Oil fell, stocks went up. Happy Monday. We'll have the details when we do the number.
All right, let's talk commodities here for a bit, shall we? Not oil the commodity most in the news of late, I know, but rather a commodity that arguably can tell us almost as much as crude about the global economy, specifically about the prospects for global growth. Copper. As its price goes up, so too does the outlook for the global economy because copper is used in so many different industries. And copper prices have indeed been going up forty-five percent this year so far, a record high earlier this month. But as Marketplaces Henry Epp reports, there are some things going on in the copper market right now.
It wasn't that long ago that the price of copper could kind of tell you how the economy was doing, says Ian Lang at the Colorado School of Mines.
And so if you saw sort of uptake in demands for copper, you said, Oh, okay, right, we're building more houses, we're building more cars, right? So things must be going well in the economy.
And yeah, we do still use copper in cars and houses and appliances, but says Jacob White at Sprout Asset Management.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the current state of the U.S.–China trade war and why are tariffs still relevant?
0:01–0:47
2
How have U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods changed since their 2023 peak?
0:47–6:09
3
Why is copper no longer a reliable indicator of global economic health?
6:09–10:24
4
What is the “neutral rate” and why does the Fed’s chairman consider it un‑observable?
10:24–16:40
5
How are soaring jet‑fuel prices forcing airlines to cut routes and schedules?
16:40–21:34
6
Why are Ohio’s Great Lakes cities topping the list for recent graduates?
21:34–26:16