Advances in Social Science and Culture ISSN 2640-9682 (Print) ISSN 2640-9674 (Online) Vol. 6, No. 6, 2024 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc 1 Original Paper Impact of U.S. Trade and Economic Policies on Sino-American Bilateral Relations Luxi Zhang1 1 The University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom Received: September 09, 2024 Accepted: October 24, 2024 Online Published: November 05, 2024 doi:10.22158/assc.v6n6p1 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n6p1 Abstract Since the Trump administration initiated the U.S.-China trade war in 2018, it has pushed the U.S. to adopt stronger economic and trade policy instruments against China through tariff policies, exacerbating the trend of economic decoupling between China and the U.S. and seriously affecting the normal operation of the global supply chain; the Biden administration continued some of the tariff measures against China, and was affected by the political contributions to 5G communication high-tech enterprises, semiconductors and other industries during the Biden period, and joined forces with European The Biden administration has continued some of the tariff measures against China, influenced by political contributions to 5G communications, semiconductors, and other industries during the Biden years, and has joined with European allies to push for the blockade of China's high-tech fields, and has imposed a technological embargo on China, mainly in the semiconductor and new energy fields. Within the framework of realism, the article focuses on the number of U.S. lists of Chinese entities and the sanctions and tariff increases imposed on Chinese companies, which have further led to the deterioration of bilateral relations between the U.S. and China. Keywords Bilateral relations, tariffs, corporate sanctions, import-export trade 1. Introduction There have been many academic overviews of the strategic competition between the United States and China and many analyses of the causes, means, and corresponding impacts of U.S. economic and trade policies. However, the mechanism of influence of U.S. economic and trade policies affecting the U.S.-China bilateral relationship is still a question worth exploring. Through a realist framework, this study deeply analyses the extensive impacts of the U.S. economic and trade policies implemented towards China during different periods of Trump and Biden on bilateral relations, especially in terms of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 2 protecting domestic industries and coping with the rise of Chinese technology. After China acceded to the World Trade Organization WTO in 2001, export-oriented growth in the 2000s after the rapid surge in its share of the U.S. economy from 12% in 2000 to 40% in 2010, the rapid development of China's trade with the U.S. has brought a particular threat to the U.S. in order to safeguard the status of the world's economic power to make a series of measures to curb the development of China's economy, which is the fundamental cause of the U.S. and China's technological competition initiated by Trump and Biden. The fundamental reason for the launch of technological competition in the Trump administration is that this measure is mainly reflected in the imposition of tariffs. The Trump administration launched a tariff war against China in March 2018. In mid-June and late August, the U.S. imposed 25% tariffs on Chinese exports worth $34 billion and $16 billion, respectively, and China imposed the same tariffs on U.S. exports, which led to a more severe stage of the trade war between China and the U.S. (Steinbock, 2018). The United States launched its second 301 investigation into China in the 21st century in August 2017, accusing China of practices that undermine U.S. intellectual property rights, innovation, and technological development. The U.S. released its 301-investigation report in March 2018, proposing punitive tariffs on more than $60 billions of Chinese imports involving China's high-tech industries (Qu et al., 2018). Expanding from what began as national security reviews to intellectual property and technology, these bilateral frictions will expand if the Trump administration continues to depart from the regular trade regime (Steinbock, 2018). In addition to tariffs, the Trump administration has included major Chinese firms on the Entity List in order to restrict transactions between U.S. and Chinese firms, a U.S. move that could affect the operation of regular global supply chains as the firms covered by the Entity List are essential in global production networks and supply chains (Zeng et al., 2022; Peng, 2024). During the Biden administration, the competition with China escalated again, with Biden increasing U.S. technological innovation by boosting domestic innovation and manufacturing capacity and the U.S. Senate passing the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (AICA), which provides $52 billion in subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing, and allocates $19.6 billion over five years to support research and development in critical areas such as AI, 5G technology, and robotics, and authorizes sanctions against Chinese entities and personnel. The implementation of U.S. economic and trade policies toward China has further deteriorated U.S.-China bilateral relations by authorizing sanctions on relevant Chinese entities, companies, and personnel (Jiangyu & Hewett, 2021). Secondly, the U.S. economic and trade policies towards China have led to tense political relations between China and the U.S. and caused disruptions in the global international trade order. This study will analyze the background of the U.S. economic and trade policy towards China, the primary rationale for the implementation of the economic and trade policy, and the impact of the economic and trade policy on the U.S.-China bilateral relations through a realist framework. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 3 2. Literature Review This study will analyse the main background of the U.S.-China economic and trade war, the main areas involved, and the impact on U.S.-China bilateral relations. This study explores the impact of U.S. economic and trade policies on China-U.S. bilateral relations, especially the evolution of China-U.S. bilateral relations in implementing U.S. economic and trade policies towards China. Qin (2019) points out that since July 2018, the United States has imposed additional tariffs on most Chinese imports, and the trade war between China and the United States has formally erupted, with the core contradictions mainly on issues such as forced technology transfer. Steinbock (2018) also emphasized that China's rapid economic growth has become the main target of the U.S. trade war. The U.S. sanctions against China's semiconductors reflect a response to the challenge to U.S. global influence (Peng, 2024), the essence of which reflects hegemonic behaviour. As the global situation is evolving, the clash between the U.S. and China in the science and technology trade war will not only impact the relationship between the two countries. However, it will also trigger a protracted global recession and a new geopolitical confrontation. This study will analyse the background of the U.S.-China economic and trade war, the main areas involved, and the impact on U.S.-China bilateral relations. 2.1 Background of Sino-US Economic and Trade War The root cause of the U.S. economic and trade policy towards China is that China has opened its market to the outside world, and the rise of Chinese trade has affected the position of the U.S. hegemonic power. Yan (2019) points out that as China's influence grows in the global market, the economic and trade competition between the U.S. and China is becoming increasingly intense. The U.S. sees the rise of China as a threat to its global leadership and has countered China's influence by forming alliances with other countries. Chukwuma et al. (2024) This study examines the root causes of the trade war between the U.S. and China and argues that structural changes in the globalization of the economy facilitated by the diffusion of technology have impacted the internal structure of the United States. OLTEANU (2022) starts from offensive realism and argues that 5G communication technology has become critical in US-China relations. Thus, U.S. economic and trade policies are implemented to protect its hegemonic position. Song (2023) further supports this argument by demonstrating that the U.S. has shifted its strategy from maintaining relative competition with China to striving for absolute technological superiority. This shift is evident in U.S. policy decisions, sanctions against Chinese companies, and cybersecurity measures to restrict China's development in the 5G sector. Qin (2019) emphasizes that semiconductors are critical to the U.S. military's global influence and that the rapid development of China's semiconductor industry in recent years poses a potential threat to the U.S. national security and economic stability, which has led to U.S. adoption of economic and trade policies to maintain the country's strategic advantage and thus contain China's technological progress. 2.2 The Impact of Sino-US Technology Trade war on Bilateral Political Relations The U.S.-China trade and S&T conflict and the implementation of U.S. policies on the U.S.-China economy and trade in recent years have become a hot topic in the academic field (Cigna, 2022; Zeng, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 4 2022). Cigna et al. (2022) analysed data on monthly product-level information on U.S. imports from 30 countries from 2016 to May 2019, focusing on the impact of the policy measures taken by the Trump administration on U.S.-China bilateral trade in the third quarter of 2018. The results of this study indicate that the implementation of tariff measures has a significant negative impact on U.S. imports from China, thus leading to the deterioration of the bilateral relationship between China and the United States. In addition, Zeng et al. (2022) further discuss other restrictive measures besides tariffs, and this study emphasizes that the U.S. has included Chinese firms in the list of entities to restrict their participation in the global production network and that this U.S. measure has also had a particular impact on the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. The U.S.-China technology war has further escalated political tensions between the two countries. Competition in science and technology is not limited to the economic sphere of influence; it also involves national security, military technology, and other vital issues. Steinbock (2018) shows that Goldman Sachs initially estimated that China would overtake the U.S. in the late 2020s and that continued U.S.-China trade tensions could lead to a severe global recession. As Yao (2018) pointed out, the U.S.-China trade war has disrupted the global trade order and negatively impacted global integration. Zeng et al. (2022) study measured the tension between China and the U.S. using the mainstream newspaper text search methodology. The negative sentiment towards the bilateral relationship and whether the two countries are in a military alliance is an important variable that affects the level of trade and the potential for trade conflict. To summarize, the U.S.-China economic and trade conflict stems from the rapid rise of China's economic and technological capabilities, as well as China's global market influence. In response, the U.S. has implemented economic and trade policies against China, such as tariffs, sanctions, and technological restrictions, designed to maintain U.S. global leadership and, thus, its hegemonic position. The U.S.-China trade conflict and technological rivalry are primarily in the core areas of 5G and semiconductors, where both countries compete for economic dominance and national security advantages. The technology trade war has exacerbated tensions beyond the economic sphere, increasing political and military friction. The imposition of tariffs and restrictive measures has not only worsened bilateral relations but also raised concerns about the stability of the global economic order. U.S. efforts to contain China's technological advances have led to an increasingly polarized international landscape. 3. Methodology 3.1 Introduction The U.S.-China bilateral relationship is a central issue in current international relations. The United States has implemented several rounds of tariff measures against China in recent years, especially since the trade war in 2018. These tariff measures have affected not only the import and export trade between the United States and China but also enterprises to a certain extent, especially the sanctions against Chinese enterprises. In this context, this paper is of practical significance in studying the U.S. tariff www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 5 policy on China, the number of entity lists, and the changes in the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China. This section summarizes the main parts: research design, data collection methodology, data analysis and conclusion. The research methodology in this chapter aims to study the underlying causes, central areas, and impact on the Sino-US political relations in the science and technology trade war between China and the United States. 3.2 Research Design This study aims to analyse the impact of U.S. economic and trade policies on China's bilateral relations with the United States. The study analyses three main aspects: bilateral trade between China and the United States, the number of sanctions imposed by the United States on Chinese companies, and the impact of tariff policies on bilateral relations between China and the United States. The study adopts the perspective of realism theory in international political economy, emphasizing national interests and competition for wealth, and uses realism theory to explore the bilateral relations and games between great powers. On the other hand, economic and trade policy directly affects bilateral trade relations through export control, tariff measures and other measures, and the U.S. seeks to increase its market share by controlling the dominant power in the international market to obtain more economic benefits. , especially in the competition for dominance in critical technologies and industrial chains. According to Mearsheimer's (2003) theory of offensive realism is argued that the anarchic nature of the international system leads to a power struggle between great powers to secure their survival, especially between rising and hegemonic powers. In The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, when the rise of one great power threatens the dominance of the other, conflict between the two countries becomes inevitable. For example, the rivalry between the United States and China is a typical struggle for dominance in East Asia, where the United States tries to prevent China from becoming the dominant power, and economic and trade relations react to the main battleground between the two countries' industries and technologies. In order to cope with the strategic competition between China and the United States, the economic and trade policies formulated by the U.S. industrial leaders have a direct impact on the global economic situation, especially in the case of limited global resources, the need to maintain U.S. hegemony, which also reflects the hegemonic and protectionist behaviour of the U.S. Up in the 21st century the U.S. considers China as the most prominent rising country, especially in the Trump era, especially obvious, and Trump regards China as a significant competitor in the global strategic competition, the U.S. formulates policies to prevent China from becoming the dominant force in East Asia. Trump sees China as the leading competitor in the global strategic competition, and the root cause of the U.S. policy is to win the strategic competition between China and the U.S., such as Figure 1: the interrelationship between hegemonic countries and rising countries. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 6 Figure 1. The Interrelationship between Hegemonic Power and Rising Power The study is based on the following three core hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: The decrease in U.S.-China bilateral trade and increased corporate sanctions worsen the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. Hypothesis 2: U.S. export restrictions on crucial technology products (e.g., chips, semiconductors) in China's supply chain directly affect the operations of Chinese high-tech firms and deteriorate U.S.-China bilateral relations. Hypothesis 3: The policies formulated by the U.S. government during different periods, although different, have led to the deterioration of the bilateral relationship between China and the U.S., especially during the Trump and Biden administrations. 3.3 Data Collection Methods This study will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to collect relevant data on the bilateral trade volume between China and the U.S., as well as the number of U.S. enterprises sanctioned against Chinese entities, and the monthly scores of the bilateral relationship between China and the U.S. for the period from 2017 to 2024. First of all, from the official databases of the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Department of the Treasury, we collect the amount of U.S.-China export trade, the amount of import trade and the number of trade balances in millions of U.S. dollars, such as Table1: Number of New U.S. Export Controls on China per Year, 2018 to 2021 and Table2: U.S. trade in goods with China (From 2016 to 2024) . At the same time, in addition to the data related to the amount of trade between China and the U.S., in order to increase the accuracy of the study, this study also collects data related to the amount of trade between China and the U.S., which are collected by the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security The number of sanctions against Chinese companies issued and counted from 2016-2021. In addition, U.S. tariffs on China are also used as the dependent variable. In addition, based on Yan and Zhou's (2004) event data analysis method, this paper assigns values to positive and negative bilateral events between the U.S. and China respectively to quantify the impact of these events on bilateral relations, correlates major events with trade volume and sanctions data each year, and analyzes the 2017-2024 U.S.-China relations in the China-Power Relations Score Table of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University. We extracted the scores from the China-U.S. Relations Score Table of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University for the years 2017-2024 and calculated the annual average score of China-U.S. relations. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 7 Table 1. Number of New U.S. Export Controls on China per Year, 2018 to 2021 Year Annual additions to U.S. export controls on China 2018 57 2019 153 2020 241 2021 83 2022 144 2023 155 2024 53 Source: Bureau of industry and Security. url:https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/11/ 2024-07760/addition-of-entities-to-and-revision-of-entry-on-the-entity-list 3.4 Data Analysis Methods This study first investigates whether there is a linear relationship between the values of the total import and export trade of China and the United States and the bilateral relationship between China and the United States by establishing a linear regression model for the annual average scores of the total import and export trade of China and the United States and the bilateral relationship of China and the United States for the period of 2017-2023, which the following regression linear equation can express: (1) Where y denotes the bilateral relationship between China and the United States, x denotes the total export and import trade between China and the United States, αas the regression coefficient, and β for denotes the expected amount of change in the dependent variable for each unit increase in the independent variable. In addition to the total export trade between China and the United States having an impact on the bilateral relationship between China and the United States, this study investigates whether there is a linear relationship between the United States and the United States through the establishment of a linear regression model of the number of U.S. lists of controls on China and the annual average score of the bilateral relationship between China and the United States, where the number of lists of controls is the independent variable, and the annual average of the bilateral relationship between China and the United States as the dependent variable, which can be expressed as the following equation: (2) Where y' denotes the bilateral relationship between China and the United States, x' is the number of U.S. control lists of Chinese entities, as regression coefficients, and for denotes the expected change in the dependent variable for each unit increase in the independent variable. Meanwhile, Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated by correlation analysis to measure the correlation coefficients between the total amount of import and export trade between China and the United States, www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 8 the number of control lists, and the annual average score of the bilateral relationship between China and the United States, in order to test the by-effects of the model, the study also simultaneously assesses the validity of the model through the coefficients of determination of the regression model. Table 2. U.S. Trade in Goods with China (From 2016 to 2024) Year Exports Imports Total exports and imports 2017 129,997.2 505,165.1 635162.3 2018 120,281.2 538,514.2 658795.4 2019 106,481.2 449,110.7 555591.9 2020 124,581.5 432,548.0 557129.5 2021 151,439.4 504,246.3 655685.7 2022 154,125.4 536,259.3 690384.7 2023 147,777.8 426,885.0 574662.8 2024 81,469.8 239,246.9 320716.7 Source: United States Census Bureau. "Trade in Goods with China." Table 3. U.S. Trade in goods with China (From 2016 to 2024) Year Average annual score of China-Us relations 2017 -1.43 2018 -3.69 2019 -6.03 2020 -7.63 2021 -7.99 2022 -7.96 2023 -7.5 2024 -6.72 Source: Institute of International Relations, Tsinghua University. url:http://www.tuiir.tsinghua.edu.cn /info/1145/6141.htm 3.5 Case Study This study focuses on the Trump term (2017-2021) and the Biden term (2021-present) to compare and analyze the changes in economic policies towards China, involving the measures of U.S. economic and trade policies such as tariffs, technological restrictions, and economic coercion in the U.S.-China strategic relationship. During the Trump presidency, U.S. tariffs on China have been increasing, and the target of taxation has been expanded from high-tech Chinese products to all Chinese products entering www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 9 the United States. Trump's tariffs against China have also triggered higher tariffs on the Chinese side. In addition to tariffs, the Trump administration has also targeted its main blow at high-tech companies such as Huawei and ZTE, trying to block the supply chain of Chinese high-tech companies through a series of export controls. Moreover, in the trade negotiations, Trump administration officials constantly exerted pressure, and the Chinese side also made a series of countermeasures in response, directly leading to further tensions in the bilateral relationship between China and the United States. Moreover, the Biden period adopted a different economic and trade strategy policy, mainly restricting emerging technologies such as semiconductors and new energy vehicles. This led to the instability of the supply chain of related technology industries, ultimately leading to further Sino-US bilateral relations. After Trump took office, he proposed a crackdown policy against China's trade based on a realist framework. In August 2017, the Trump administration signed an executive memorandum and conducted a 301 investigation (Tong & Ju, 2021). In March 2018 published the Section 301 Investigation of China's Trade Practices, accusing the Chinese government of actions such as technology transfer and intellectual property rights, as shown in Table 2: U.S. trade in goods with China (From 2016 to 2024), which decreased from a total of 658,795.4 million dollars in U.S.-China import and export trade in 2018 to 555,591.9 million dollars in 2019, indicating that the implementation of Section 301 has rapidly reduced the volume of trade between China and the United States. The tariffs on steel and aluminium imposed by the Trump administration in March 2018 led to the gradual expansion of the trade conflict between China and the United States, thus worsening the bilateral relationship between China and the United States; the tariffs imposed by the United States on Chinese imports came into effect on September 1, 2018, a move that also had a particularly negative impact on the local U.S. agricultural industry. Trump formally signed a POTA with China's vice premier and chief trade negotiator in the January 2020 agreement. The move marked the announcement of a ceasefire in the 18-month trade war between the two sides, a conflict that had posed a significant and unprecedented threat to the global economy (FATTAH, 2023). During the Biden administration, the United States has taken a series of economic coercive measures against China, especially export restrictions through the U.S. Department of Commerce, to curb China's development in high technology and protect the U.S. technological leadership. First, through the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the U.S. Department of Commerce has further increased export restrictions on products and technologies related to China's high-tech industries, mainly semiconductors and artificial intelligence. The Biden administration's efforts to provide the U.S. with a legitimate framework to respond to China's trade disputes through the WTO Appeals Mechanism will be a powerful tool for the U.S. to counter China's policies. The U.S.'s rejoining the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) or pushing forward with the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) may further strengthen its influence over global trade rules ( Tong & Ju, 2021); emerging high-standard trade agreements such as the CPTPP may require China to make more reforms in the areas of competitive neutrality between SOEs and private enterprises, openness in www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 10 government procurement, and labour rights. In summary, Biden's tenure has been characterized by more robust controls on semiconductor and new energy vehicle supply chains and focusing on "de-risking" strategic objectives with allies in Europe and Japan. It is trying to create a new exclusive "alliance" to compete with China. Compared with the Trump administration, Biden's presidency in the high-tech field of technology and export control is more strengthened, to a certain extent, to limit China's industrial upgrading. China-US relations have remained the same since Trump's term. In summary, the Trump and Biden administrations have differences in their economic and trade policies regarding China. However, they are generally consistent in the direction of strategic competition, both based on maximizing national interests. For example, the high tariffs and supply chain reorganization policies implemented during the Trump era (Steinbock, 2018) and the sanctions imposed on related technology companies and personnel during the Biden administration (Jiangyu & Hewett, 2021); in summary, the implementation of economic and trade policies towards China during the Trump and Biden administrations has further deteriorated the bilateral relationship between China and the United States. 4. Results Figure 2. Average value of China-US relations shows that the annual average score of China-US bilateral relations decreased from 2017 to 2023 and reached its lowest value of -7.99 in 2021; however, the average score of China-US bilateral relations slowed down from 2022 to 2023 but remained at a lower value. Figure 2. Average Value of China-US Relations From Figure3. Total imports and exports (US $million), the total trade between China and the United States increased from 2017-2018, and there is a decreasing trend from 2018 to 2019, but it is still an increasing trend from 2020 to 2022 and reaches the maximum value of the total trade in 2022 at 690,384.7 million dollars in 2022; after 2022 it starts to decline again. www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 11 Figure 3. Total Imports and Exports (US $million) From Figure 4. Scatter plot about total imports and exports (U.S. $million) against the average value of China-US relations. This linear regression equation indicates that an increase of one million dollars in the total trade volume of the U.S. and China will raise the average value of China-US relations by 0.000007 units. In addition, about 2.09% of the variability in the mean value of the Sino-U.S. relationship can be explained by the total amount of imports and exports, indicating that the total amount does not contribute significantly to the change in the mean value of the bilateral relationship. The total trade between China and the U.S. shows a weak positive correlation with the annual mean of bilateral relations. R^2 is 0.145 from Figure 4, which indicates that this linear relationship is hardly helpful in explaining the changes in the Sino-U.S. relationship. Figure 4. Scatter Plot about Total Imports and Exports (US $million) against Average Value of China-US relations Through the graph of Figure5. Number of US control lists on China against Average value of China relations each year, we can see that the linear regression equation of the number of US control lists on China and the average value of China-US bilateral scores each year is -5.2406. Through this Through this linear equation we can see that for every increase in the number of U.S. control lists against China, the average value of China-U.S. relations will decrease by 0.0063 units. This means that the increase in the number of U.S. control lists against China further deteriorates the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China. =0.0272 means that the linear model can only explain 2.72% of the variation in the annual average value of the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China. Therefore, the number of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 12 control lists has a small impact on the relationship between China and the United States and is also influenced by other factors. Figure 5. Number of US control lists on China against Average value of China relations each year U. S. Tariffs on China and the Average Annual Score of the U.S.-China Bilateral Relationship, 2015-2023 These tariff hikes during Trump's are likely to lead to a deterioration in US-China relations. Tariff policies usually trigger economic friction and trade conflicts, which may lead to a decline in the average annual score of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. According to the regression analysis of total U.S.-China trade and bilateral relations, although total trade and U.S.-China relations show a very weak positive correlation, the imposition of tariffs may negatively affect total U.S.-China trade, especially after the tariffs are imposed on all the remaining commodities in September 2019, which may have a knock-on effect on the overall trade volume, and further affect the bilateral relations. These tariff measures are one of the critical factors affecting U.S.-China relations in 2018-2019, especially at the level of bilateral economic cooperation. A trade agreement with China was reached for 2019-2021, with no increase in tariffs and essentially no change in the U.S.-China bilateral score. Biden chose to raise Chinese tariffs in areas where his administration has set growth goals and where the U.S. has invested heavily in clean energy technology and semiconductors. Tariffs on Chinese solar cells would be 50 per cent. Tariffs on advanced batteries and critical minerals needed to make them would rise to 25 per cent. Tariffs on semiconductors reach 50 percent. Some of these tariffs will be delayed from going up, apparently to allow domestic companies to increase production and find other sources of supply outside of China. Other tariffs will affect industries in crucial swing states, including heavy metals. Tariffs on certain imported steel and aluminium products will triple and reach 25 per cent. The imposition of tariffs would significantly impact the U.S.-China bilateral annual scores. 5. Conclusion This study applies the realist theory in the field of international political economy to explore the dynamics of bilateral relations between the United States and China. The fundamental reason for the U.S. trade policy toward China is the rapid rise of China's economic and technological capabilities and www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/assc Advances in Social Science and Culture Vol. 6 No. 6, 2024 Published by SCHOLINK INC. 13 China's influence in overseas markets, in response to which the U.S. has adopted economic and trade policies such as tariffs, sanctions on physical companies, and technological restrictions in order to safeguard the hegemonic power's global dominant position; these policies have focused mainly on critical technological areas such as 5G communications and semiconductors, and the two countries have been competing for economic dominance and international security. During their struggle for economic dominance and international security, the intensity of tariffs and the increasing number of control lists on Chinese entities have worsened the bilateral relationship between the United States and China, leading to an increasingly polarized international landscape. This paper, by building a linear regression model, examines the U.S. to show that economic and trade policies, such as export controls and increasing tariffs, have negatively affected the Sino-U.S. bilateral relationship, viewed in a realist framework as a competitive strategic measure implemented by the U.S. to preserve its hegemonic position. The results of linear regression equations show that with the number of export controls and the total volume of trade, the frequency of increase in tariff measures leads to the deterioration of bilateral relations between the United States and China. The realist perspective further argues that in strategic competition between great powers, economic and trade policies are not only a means of defending national interests but also part of the great powers' efforts to maintain their hegemonic position and dominance. During the Trump and Biden administrations, different strategic tools have been implemented to curtail China's expansion in overseas markets. During the Trump administration, the primary means of suppressing China was through tariffs to reduce the trade deficit and protect their national industries. The Biden administration has focused on export controls on critical technologies and high-tech industries, mainly in new energy. Both aim to preserve U.S. global hegemony and dominance, further aggravating bilateral relations between China and the U.S. References Cigna, S., Meinen, P., Schulte, P., & Steinhoff, N. (2022). The impact of US tariffs against china on US imports: Evidence for trade diversion? 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China Science and Technology Forum, (5), 128-135. Zeng, K., Wells, R., Gu, J., & Wilkins, A. (2022). Bilateral Tensions, the Trade War, and US–China Trade Relations. Business and Politics, 24(4), 399-429. https://doi.org/10.1017/bap.2022.8 Impact of U.S. Trade and Economic Policies on Sino Luxi Zhang1 1 The University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingd Abstract Keywords Figure 1. The Interrelationship between Hegemonic Table 1. Number of New U.S. Export Controls on Chi Table 3. U.S. Trade in goods with China (From 2016 Source: Institute of International Relations, Tsin url:http://www.tuiir.tsinghua.edu.cn /info/1145/61 After Trump took office, he proposed a crackdown p During the Biden administration, the United States In summary, the Trump and Biden administrations ha References