The drivers of US-China trade are shifting in the wake of the US-China trade war and the Covid-19 pandemic. In some areas, like aircraft and their component parts, trade between the two countries has shrunk considerably. Yet, in other areas trade between them is reaching new heights. Pharmaceutical products have emerged as one of the largest winners. Over the past five years, two-way trade of pharmaceuticals has grown from composing just 0.6 percent of the trading relationship to nearly 3 percent of its total value. This growth is not the result of a surge in cheap, Chinese imports. The trade is broadly balanced\u2014the US imported $10.2B while exporting $9.3B to China\u2014and is driven by advanced medicines such as cancer treatments and antibiotics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The emergence of this important, new supply chain linking both economies has implications for economic interdependence and national security. However, despite the increase and the tone of recent rhetoric<\/a> around the US-China pharmaceutical trade, China does not have a stranglehold on the US medicine supply chain. Still, the US ought to prioritize a regular supply-chain mapping exercise in order to provide policymakers ample breathing room to act well before dependence on China becomes a material risk to the US healthcare system.<\/p>\n\n\n