page_title: China–United States trade war
section_title: China joins the World Trade Organization
hierarchical_section_title: China–United States trade war / Background / China joins the World Trade Organization
context_page_description: The China–United States trade war is an ongoing economic conflict between China and the United States. President Donald Trump in 2018 began setting tariffs and other trade barriers on China with the goal of forcing it to make changes to what the U.S. says are "unfair trade practices". Among those trade practices and their effects are the growing trade deficit, and alleged theft of intellectual property and forced transfer of American technology to China. In response to US trade measures, the Chinese government has accused the Trump administration of engaging in protectionism. On January 15, 2020, the two sides reached a phase one agreement, but tensions persisted.
  Since the 1980s, Trump has advocated tariffs to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and promote domestic manufacturing, saying the country was being "ripped off" by its trading partners; imposing tariffs became a major plank of his presidential campaign.
context_section_description: With the United States–China Relations Act of 2000, China was allowed to join WTO in 2001 and was given a most favoured nation (MFN) status. President Bill Clinton in 2000 pushed Congress to approve the U.S.-China trade agreement and China's accession to the WTO, saying that more trade with China would advance America's economic interests.
  However, his administration had accused the Chinese of failing to comply with global trade rules and demanded that the Chinese first resolve a list of outstanding trade grievances with Washington, including opening its markets and protecting copyrights and patents. Among the key issues were that China was a major source of pirated musical compact disks and video laser disks, along with virtually all the computer software sold in China. On intellectual property rights, there was no enforcement of China's written laws, and as a result the piracy and theft of American-produced music, videos and software was costing American companies $1 billion a year by 1994 ($1.73 billion in 2019 dollars).
  By 2000, Clinton said he was optimistic on achieving a fair agreement: "Economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world’s population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways," said Clinton. In a speech that year, he stated his hopes:
  For the first time, our companies will be able to sell and distribute products in China made by workers here in America without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China, sell through the Chinese government, or transfer valuable technology—for the first time. We’ll be able to export products without exporting jobs.
caption: George W. Bush and Chinese leader Hu Jintao at the White House, April 20, 2006
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2006:04:21 11:39:37", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4127", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1024", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "682"}