Background
The U.S.-China trade and economic relationship has expanded significantly over the past three decades. In 2017, China was the United States’ largest U.S. merchandise trading partner (at $636 billion), third-largest export market ($130 billion), and largest source of imports ($506 billion). China is also the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities (at nearly $1.2 trillion as of May 2018). However, tensions between the two countries have grown sharply in recent years over a number of economic and trade issues.
