Hard as it is to imagine amid the harrowing US-China trade war these days, there was a time when the two countries hardly did any business with each other.
That time was about 40 years ago, in the mid-1980s.
In those days, China had just barely begun the sweeping economic reforms that would turn a country wrecked by Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution into a new “workshop of the world.” By churning out exports of everything from sneakers and sofas to smartphones and solar panels, China carved out a crucial role in the global economy.
A major moment in China’s trade growth came in the early 2000s when, over objections from US labor unions and industry groups worried about the impact of cheaper Chinese labor on American jobs, the US opened the way for China to join the World Trade Organization.
After that, China became one of the top three US trade partners, a place it has held ever since — occasionally beating out Canada and Mexico for the top spot. The US trade deficit with China — nearly $300 billion last year — is the largest in the world.
Since President Donald Trump’s first term, the US has hit China with tariffs in an effort to rebalance the trade relationship and “decouple” sensitive American industries from a country that most people in Washington now view as a rival.
These efforts have intensified in the early months of Trump’s second term, and the two countries have now imposed triple digit tariffs on each other.
Here’s a look back at how US-China commercial ties grew from nearly nothing into the largest, and now most contentious, trade relationship in the world.
