What might the consequences have been had Biden simply enforced what had already been signed? Let us consider the counterfactual.
Had China fulfilled its obligations, US manufacturing firms would have seen a surge in demand. American farmers, already battered by the pandemic and inflation, would have sold tens of billions more in produce. Energy exports, particularly in natural gas and oil, would have grown substantially. Financial giants like JPMorgan Chase and MetLife, once poised to enter the Chinese market under the agreement, were stalled.
And the tax revenue? According to projections from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, full Chinese compliance with Phase One would have injected between $300 to $400 billion in direct US economic activity, which, when multiplied across sectors, could conservatively yield over $4 trillion in aggregate GDP gains over four years. Not only would this have bolstered federal revenues, it would have mitigated the post-COVID economic drag that haunted much of Biden's first term….