What goods does the United States import from China

Imported intermediate products and components.

The U.S. has a huge demand for Chinese imports, and about 60% of U.S.-China trade is in intermediate products, which are essential for U.S. production and consumption. To produce a variety of intermediate products and ensure price competitiveness, need to have a large and complex industrial system to support, and looking around the world, at present only China to support.

U.S. companies and China to form the interdependence of the value chain is experienced for a long time, so that these companies suddenly abandon China to go to other countries to reorganize the value chain, is not easy. The trade war has proved to be a huge disaster for U.S. companies that need to import from China, and some small and medium-sized enterprises that rely on parts imported from China for reassembly have even been driven into bankruptcy.

As the world's top two economies, China and the U.S. have a very high degree of interdependence. The U.S. economy relies on cheap imports from China to maintain a low inflation rate and more stable economic growth. If a trade war destroys this balance and "decouples" from China, the U.S. will lose the "low inflation and high growth" situation it has enjoyed for many years.

Since 2018, U.S. exports to China have fallen sharply, while China's exports to the U.S. have hit record levels. This suggests that there is some sort of rigidity in U.S. firms' imports from China. On the contrary, China's imports from the United States, such as natural gas, oil and soybeans, are highly substitutable. Therefore, the U.S. has more to lose than to gain from a trade war with China.

With fewer exports and less production, U.S. firms will see a decline in economic growth; conversely, Chinese firms, unable to obtain technological products imported from the U.S., will have to increase investment and expand production that replaces U.S. imports, and China's economic growth will gain momentum as a result.

People's Daily Online - U.S. has more to lose than to gain from trade war with China