Biden Will Inherit a Strong Hand Against Xi, Thanks to Trump

Trump’s tariffs and sanctions give Biden items for negotiation
Biden has said he wants to get U.S. ‘allies on the same page’

Joe Biden
Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg

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By Peter Martin and Saleha Mohsin

December 20, 2020 at 11:00 PM UTC

Updated on

December 21, 2020 at 6:35 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Joe Biden will take office next month wielding more leverage over Beijing than he would have ever sought. He can thank Donald Trump and Xi Jinping for that.

Biden will be sworn in as president after Trump’s administration spent years ramping up pressure on China, including levying tariffs on $370 billion in imports, getting Canada to place a Chinese executive for Huawei Technologies Co. under house arrest, threatening access to U.S. capital markets and blaming the Communist Party for the scale of the Covid-19 outbreak.