With China and U.S. at intense economic odds, nations are being forced to choose sides

The magnitude of the taxes are already dramatically affecting American imports, with the shipping containers set to arrive at the Port of Los Angeles down nearly 36% over the past two weeks, according to Port Optimizer, which tracks vessels. Total trade for China reached a record 43.85 trillion yuan (US$6 trillion) in 2024, and the country is the biggest trading partner for most of the world, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea and the grouping of the 10 Southeast Asian countries known as ASEAN. Countries caught between the U.S. and China are in “an impossible situation” because they need to stay economically connected both to China, "a source of a lot of their input and imports” and to the powerhouse U.S. market, said Matthew Goodman, director of the Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.