中国和美国.S. are shipping goods to each other at the briskest pace in years, making the world’s largest bilateral 贸易 relationship look as if the protracted 关税 war and pandemic never happened.

Eighteen months after the Trump administration signed the 贸易 deal, the agreement has turned out to be a truce at best. 美国.S. 贸易逆差没有缩小, 大多数税种仍在征收, and it hasn’t led to negotiations over other economic issues.

然而,, bilateral 贸易 in goods is an area of stability in a relationship that has otherwise continued to deteriorate, 香港局势日益紧张, 台湾, 人权, Covid-19大流行的起源, 的指责 电脑黑客 还有很多其他的 爆发点.
 

每月双向贸易, which tumbled to $19 billion in February of last year amid shutdowns in Chinese factories, 在过去的一年里反弹到新的记录, 根据中国官方数据. And that boom looks set to continue, with China purchasing millions of tons of U.S. farm goods for this year and next and stuck-at-home U.S. 消费者仍然 购物 进口量也创下了历史新高.

而美国.S. 政府的数据 有所不同, the bustling 贸易 has defied all expectations that the 关税s on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of merchandise would force a decoupling of supply chains. Instead, both sides have learned to live with the taxes, with Chinese firms 购买更多 to fulfill the terms of the 2020 贸易 deal, and U.S. companies purchasing goods they can’t get elsewhere to meet elevated household 部分需求受到刺激 数万亿美元的政府刺激计划.

“We’ve seen the strong consumer demand that’s been occurring throughout the pandemic, and we’ve seen the import levels just go through the roof,乔纳森·戈尔德说, vice president of supply-chains and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, which represents vendors from mom-and-pop stores through the big-box chain behemoths. “That’s a strong sign that the economy continues to recover.”

韩国和台湾对美国的出口增加.S. have also risen over the same period, underscoring the strength of U.S. demand despite one of the worst outbreaks of Covid-19 of any nation.

几乎有一半 of the $259 billion in cargo moving in and out of Los Angeles port -- the U.S.最大的贸易争端涉及中国内地和香港. U.S. 对商品的需求有增无减, with record inbound shipments to the port in May as companies start to restock ahead of the Christmas 购物 season.

“所有 signs point to a robust second half of the year,” Los Angeles port Executive Director Gene Seroka said during a recent press briefing, 注意到秋季时装, 返校, Halloween and holiday goods were already arriving on the docks.

With 关税s in place on more than $300 billion in imports from China, from footwear and clothing to electronics and bicycles and even pet food, 很多你.S. retailers are choosing to absorb the cost and squeezing their profit margins, the NRF’s Gold said. 一些公司正在将这些产品传递给消费者.

Firms also are dealing with backlogs and bottlenecks at U.S. 港口和运输成本增加.

The number of container ships waiting to enter the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, 加州, 本周升至3个半月高点, while the spot shipping rate for a 40-foot container from Shanghai to Los Angeles is more than triple a year ago.

“Between the cost of the 关税s and the increased cost of transportation that we’re seeing, that’s having an impact on companies’ bottom line,戈尔德说. “They’ve seen significant cost increases as a result of both the 贸易 war and the transportation crisis we’re facing.”

The Biden administration hasn’t said whether it plans to continue with the deal and is reviewing U.S. 对中国的政策，但与美国.S. 贸易代表戴嘉玲 调用 the 贸易 relationship “unbalanced” and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen 说 the deal didn’t address the fundamental problems with China, the outlook is unfavorable.

在这些紧张关系之上, China’s purchasing targets expire at the end of the year, 这个国家是 远远落后于 它承诺现在会在哪里. Those targets were initially seen as unrealistically high and problems like the Covid-19 pandemic or the 接地 of the Boeing 737 Max jet put them even further out of reach.

即使交易被取消, the lesson from the past four or so years is that even if there is political will, it’s harder to stop or divert international 贸易 than might have been thought.

由于中国政府未能实现收购目标, China refraining from aircraft purchases and companies moving automotive production out of the U.S. to avoid getting hit with 关税s from the 贸易 war, the agreement between the world’s two biggest economies is “pretty irrelevant at this stage,查德·鲍恩说, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, 谁的最新研究集中在该协定上.

“中国买自己需要的东西，”鲍恩说. “If it’s 购买更多 of certain American products, it’s doing so probably out of its own interest.”