[23] The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama imposed quotas and tariffs on Chinese textiles in order to shield US domestic producers, accusing China of exporting these products at dumping prices.

[42][43] Former White House Counsel, Jim Schultz, said that "through multiple presidential administrations – Clinton, Bush and Obama – the United States has naively looked the other way while China cheated its way to an unfair advantage in the international trade market.

"[47] Lighthizer said that the value of the tariffs imposed was based on U.S. estimates of the actual economic damage caused by alleged theft of intellectual property and foreign-ownership restrictions that require foreign companies to transfer technology.

[71][72] On 29 March 2024, the Biden administration revised rules aimed at restricting China's access to U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) chips and chipmaking tools, including those from Nvidia, as part of efforts to address national security concerns over Beijing's tech advancements potentially aiding its military.

[256] President of China and CCP general secretary Xi Jinping reiterated those pledges,[257] affirming a desire to increase imports, lower foreign-ownership limits on manufacturing and expand protection to intellectual property, all central issues in Trump's complaints about their trade imbalance.

[265] The external pressure of the trade war allowed Chinese leader Xi Jinping to point to the United States' actions as a reason for China's economic slowdown.

[268]: 233–234 Analysis conducted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that China imposed uniform tariffs averaging 8% on all its importers in January 2018, before the trade war began.

[280] Analysis conducted by Moody's Analytics estimated that through August 2019 300,000 American jobs had either been lost or not created due to the trade war, especially affecting manufacturing, warehousing, distribution and retail.

[267]: 180 Analysis published by The Wall Street Journal in October 2020 found the trade war did not achieve the primary objective of reviving American manufacturing nor did it result in the reshoring of factory production.

Between 2018 and 2020, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency administered and oversaw the distribution of $23 billion in the form of direct payments to farmers for losses caused by international trade disputes through the Market Facilitation Program.

[326] US-ASEAN Business Council CEO Alex Feldman said these countries may not benefit for long: "It's in everyone's interest to see this spat get resolved and go back to normal trade relations between the US and China.

[334][335][336][337] An August 2019 article in NPR said that while some in the PRC leadership argued for a quick resolution to the trade war in order to save China's economy, others said that the country should push back against the United States and avoid an agreement at all costs.

"[336][337] In August 2018, Hong Kong-based academic Willy Lam said that the trade war had galvanized all the previous misgivings which different countries in the West had toward China and undermined Chinese leader Xi Jinping's authority.

[336][337] Zhang Baohui, a political science professor at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, similarly said that the trade war had been effective in challenging the myth of Chinese invincibility, saying that the tariffs "really hurt China at a very bad time, when the economy is experiencing serious trouble.

[23] In September 2019, Lu Xiang, an analyst at the state-backed Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, expressed pessimism about the outcome of upcoming talks, called Trump "unpredictable", and said, "We can only try to find sensible clues in his nonsense.

"[344] In mid-2021, Taoran Notes, a social media account associated with the state-run Economic Daily, advised Chinese decision-makers to remain calm and recommended that both sides develop a deeper understanding of each other's perspectives.

[345] People's Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, has stated that China will be able to withstand the trade war, and that Trump's policies are affecting American consumers.

[333]: 328  According to the Global Times, the trade war had made Chinese people more mature and confident and the country proved it had political and economic institutions strong enough to defend its interests.

[359] Other senators from both parties have criticized Trump for the trade war, including Chuck Grassley,[360] Tim Kaine,[361] Mark Warner,[361] Elizabeth Warren,[362] and Ron Wyden.

[369] In February 2019, a survey released by the American Chamber of Commerce in China showed that a majority of member U.S. companies supported increasing or maintaining tariffs on Chinese goods, and nearly twice as many respondents compared to the year before wanted the U.S. government to push Beijing harder to create a level playing field.

[322] Hun Quach, vice president of international trade for the Retail Industry Leaders Association has claimed that the tariffs will impact American family budgets by raising the prices of everyday items.

"[14]: 255 In a November 2018 testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Jennifer Hillman, a professor of practice at Georgetown University Law School, said that United States "ought to be bringing a big and bold case, based on a coalition of countries working together to take on China.

"[396] Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics said that while it made sense for other countries to get more involved in confronting China, the problem was that they did not know how serious Trump was on reforming the larger, systemic issues.

[400] In November 2019, Jim Cramer said that unless China purchased a considerable amount of American goods as a way to prove the validity of the arguments proffered by the free-trade contingent in the Trump administration, the U.S.–China trade war would continue on for a significant period of time.

[401] After the first phase of a trade deal was agreed upon in December 2019, Mary E. Lovely of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and professor at Syracuse University said the ceasefire was "good news" for the American economy while expressing optimism that the talks would help address China's "unfair" intellectual property practices.

[402][403] Economist Paul Krugman said in September 2020 that if Democratic candidate Joe Biden won the U.S. presidential election, he should maintain a tough stance against China, but focus more on industrial policy than trade tariffs.

"[405] In study on the trade-effects of regulation in 2023, economists Knut Blind and Moritz Böhmecke-Schwafert concluded that tariff hikes by the US are expected to have an opposite effect in the mid- and long-term "and exports from China to the US might actually increase" based on trade data of OECD and BRICS countries in the last two decades.

[406] Minxin Pei, a scholar of Chinese politics at California's Claremont McKenna College, argued that Xi Jinping's ambition for China's revival as a worldpower had been revealed as hollow through the continuing trade dispute.

[336] The former Vice President Joe Biden said: "While Trump is pursuing a damaging and erratic trade war, without any real strategy, China is positioning itself to lead the world in renewable energy.

"[407] An August 2019 Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll found that 67% of registered voters wanted the U.S. to confront Beijing over its trade policies despite the fact that 74% said American consumers were shouldering most of the burden of tariffs.