User:Thucydides411/Trade war background

Background
The United States and China are the world's two largest economies. Since the beginning of China's economic reforms in the late 1970s, trade between China and the United States has increased rapidly. In 1979, the United States and the People's Republic of China normalized diplomatic relations and signed their first bilateral trade agreement. The growth of trade was accelerated by China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. By acceding to the WTO, China benefited from lower tariffs on its exports and reduced barriers to trade in foreign markets. In return, China agreed to rapid reductions in the tariffs that it imposed on imports, as well as the reduction of other obstacles faced by foreign companies in China. The volume of trade in goods between the the US and China grew from $2.3 billion in 1979 to over $600 billion in 2017. The US consistently imported more from China than it exported to China, with the bilateral US trade deficit in goods with China rising to $375.6 billion in 2017.

During the 2016 US Presidential election campaign, Donald Trump promised to reduce the US trade deficit with China, which he attributed to unfair trade practices, such as intellectual property theft and lack of access by US companies to the Chinese market.