US-China trade war

Starting in 2018, the US imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese imports, citing trade imbalances and forced technology transfer, and China responded with retaliatory tariffs on US goods including soybeans and other agricultural exports. By the time a 'Phase One' truce was signed in January 2020, average US tariffs on Chinese goods had risen from about 3% to over 19%. Multinational manufacturers began shifting some supply chains out of China toward Vietnam, India, and Mexico to avoid the tariffs, an early version of the 'friend-shoring' trend that accelerated further after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed additional supply-chain vulnerabilities. Studies by the US Federal Reserve and others found the tariffs raised costs for US consumers and businesses roughly one-for-one, with limited net benefit to the targeted US industries.