Biden Admin Fails To Enforce Trump’s Phase One Trade Deal With China

The Biden administration has failed to enforce the U.S.-China phase one trade agreement. There are serious concerns about the enforcement mechanism of the deal as China’s purchases fall behind targets. 

In the trade deal signed in January 2020, Beijing promised to purchase about $200 billion of US goods and services over 2020, 2021 compared with 2017 levels. We’ve noted on multiple occasions how China was never going to live up to the deal, and nearly two years later, it still hasn’t. 

Top Biden officials have tried to reassure that the deal is still intact and said the administration would hold China accountable. 

Through September 2021, trade data from Peterson Institute for International Economics shows China only purchased 62% of the US goods expected at this point for the deal covering 2021. Put differently, China is about $121 billion behind its expected purchases for the year. 

In every category, China falls behind in commitments. 

Bloomberg recently spoke with a soybean farmer and head of DC Analytics in Illinois, Dan Cekander, who said: 

“China isn’t buying as aggressively as anticipated at all.

“They really need to step it up.”

From the agreement’s early days, about six days after the deal was signed, we told readers the deal was “doomed from the start.” Since then, China has never been on pace to meet purchase commitments. And for the Biden administration to tout that they will enforce the deal is just malarkey. 

Presumably, Biden’s “build back better” agenda does not rely on exports?