But America's complaints have met with hostility. Relations with the EU are also prickly. The banana war could soon become a beef war as well, as the WTO has ruled against the EU's ban on hormone-treated beef imports but the EU is making no effort to comply. America and the EU are also clashing over mobile-telephone standards and data privacy. Tension with China is rising too.
China exports five times as much to America as it imports.
It is, moreover, an easy target for American sanctions, since it has enacted its own measures to curb imports and cannot appeal to the WTO against any American action. The flashpoint could be Congress's annual vote in June on renewing normal trading relations with China, which will be swayed by its human-rights record. China could also be hit by a new law that allows the administration to impose sanctions on countries that persecute religious groups. A new round of trade talks could, in theory, put the brakes on a slide into protectionism. The roots of Mr Clinton's current difficulties lie in his first years in office.