China’s ability to weather Trump’s trade war was two decades in the making
As Xi Jinping prepares to host Donald Trump for a delayed summit in Beijing on May 14-15, a lot has changed since the US president’s last visit to China in November 2017. Trump’s first trade war with China began in earnest the following year, ushering in a new era of trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
Trump will travel to Beijing in the wake of a US Supreme Court ruling in February that struck down his “Liberation Day” tariffs. The Trump administration responded by imposing a 10% universal tariff on all goods coming into the US, but it’s time limited to 150 days under US law and will expire on July 24. Since the ruling, both China and the US have also launched investigations into each other’s trade practices.
Before the Supreme Court ruling, the effective tariff rate on Chinese goods into the US was 47%. Now, researchers at Yale put the effective tariff rate at between 19-24%. The range reflects different scenarios for what might happen after July, and factors in tariffs on other goods, such as steel, aluminium and copper, not covered by the ruling.
And yet, amid all the tit-for-tat on tariffs, China reported a record trade surplus in 2025 of US$1.2 trillion. How did it manage it?
In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to economist Jiao Wang at the University of Sussex, about how decisions China took over the past two decades, meant it was able to protect itself from the worst of Trump’s trade wars.
Wang explains that while the direct trade between the US and China fell sharply in 2025, “it was more than compensated by the increase in trade to other part of the world. We already observed this great reallocation in the first trade war, and then in the second trade war, the conclusion is it becomes even more prominent.”
She traces the history of this great reallocation to understand what moves China made to decouple its economy from the west, and the strategy its now pursuing on global trade.
Listen to the interview with Jiao Wang on The Conversation Weekly podcast.
This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl.
Newsclips in this episode from APArchive, WSBTTV News, Max Media Asia, Al Jazeera English, CNA, BBCNews, CNBC Television, DW News, France 24 English, CNN, Global News and NBC News.
Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.
Jiao Wang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.