The US lacks sincerity to restore normal trade ties with China. Illustration: Xia Qing/GT

Although the US trade war and blame game against China has been proven to be a failure, it has not prevented US officials and the media from continuing to go further down this wrong path. Bloomberg on Tuesday again pointed fingers at China on trade issues, claiming China has slowed purchasing American goods in order to meet the US-China phase one trade deal.

When the deal was signed in January 2020, it was viewed as a ceasefire agreement to the arbitrary trade war the Trump Administration launched, but now it has been increasingly used as a weapon by the Biden administration to assault China.

As the two-year deadline for the phase-one trade deal between the world's two largest economies approaches, the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said earlier this month that the Biden administration intends to hold China accountable while exploring all weaknesses in China's trade performance.

At the end of September, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo also used the deal to push China to buy tens of billions of dollars of US-manufactured Boeing airplanes. Raimondo accused China of "not abiding by commitments to buy US goods" as part of the phase one trade deal.

However, the reality shows that despite the impact of COVID-19 on global trade and the economy, China has shown genuine sincerity in implementing the phase one trade agreement, and has done even more than the agreement required.

In terms of total trade volume, China's imports from the US have risen sharply since the deal was signed. According to the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs of China, in the first 10 months of this year, China's total imports from the US reached $145 billion, a year-on-year increase of 39 percent. 

China's massive purchase of American commodities has generated huge benefits for American farmers, energy producers and other exporters who have experienced the pandemic health crisis. The US Department of Agriculture said in its 2020 accomplishments that the China-US phase one trade deal led to a record pace of Chinese purchases, boosting agricultural commodity prices.

In addition to fulfilling its trade commitments and helping the US economy to recover quickly from the pandemic, China has shown sincerity in other areas. Recently, in response to the high domestic inflation in the US, the Biden government has asked China, the world's largest oil importer and second largest oil consumer, to coordinate action with the US to tap into oil reserves to bring down elevated crude prices.

Compared with China's good faith and concrete efforts to repair China-US trade relations, the US is the party which has failed to act in good faith. Shortly after the meeting between Chinese and American leaders, US trade officials and the media used the phase one trade agreement to again attack China. 

Their rhetoric was nothing more than an attempt to find a bargaining chip to force China to make concessions on trade and other issues, but such an attempt was doomed to failure.

China's economy has weathered the dual impact of the pandemic and US tariff war, outperforming other major economies. China's economic resilience has completely been tested by the trade war. Nevertheless, the US economy is clearly in deep trouble. 

The Biden administration already knows that high inflation in the US has a lot to do with its imposing punitive tariffs on Chinese imports. Instead of attacking China, what the US should do now is to take the long-overdue move to abolish the tariffs. This may be more positive for the US economy than releasing oil reserves.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn