Economic Statecraft Toward China from Trump to Biden: More Continuity Than Meets the Eye

In the final year of the Trump administration, the U.S. government issued a flurry of actions related to China, utilizing a diverse basket of economic statecraft tools in furtherance of national security objectives.1 These ranged from targeted asset freezes of individuals undermining Hong Kongࢀ™s autonomy to restrictions on the importation of goods suspected of being produced with forced labor in Xinjiang. The two most high-profile actions were Commerce Department restrictions on the provision by businesses of certain services to the social media platform TikTok and the messaging app WeChat in August and September of 2020, followed by November 2020 sanctions…