China has been buying record levels of agricultural products from the US,notably soybeans,but is tracking at only just above 50 per cent of the commitments it made to buy US products.

Under the phase one deal,China promised to increase its purchases of US products by $US200 billion relative to 2018 levels. It can,of course,point to the pandemic as an excuse for falling well short of the target.

The US-China Business Council said the tariffs had caused the loss of 245,000 US jobs because US companies and consumers,not Chinese exporters,had absorbed their cost.

While the deal signed a year ago was regarded as a truce in the trade war,it paused only one aspect of the US trade relationship with China.

Subsequently,the Trump administration has opened new fronts in the face-off with its challenger for economic and strategic leadership,launching an assault on China’s technology companies and citing its treatment of Hong Kong and the Uighurs for a raft of sanctions on companies and individuals.

There has been a flurry of new sanctions on Chinese companies in these dying days of the administration,with more than 350 companies and individuals now subject to US sanctions.

The legacies in the relationship with America's major trading partner that Trump leaves Joe Biden will challenge the new administration.

Biden,who has myriad more pressing domestic issues – more Trump legacies – to resolve,has indicated he will leave the phase one deal and tariffs in place until the new administration has an opportunity to review them and consult its traditional allies to help develop a more strategic and sophisticated approach to dealing with China.

Any review will conclude that the trade war generated self-inflicted damage to the US without curbing China’s exports or adversely impacting its economy and that the chaotic nature of the attack on China's technology sector is ad hoc,crude and lacks a clear framework.

It might also note that the US runs a structural deficit because it issues the world's reserve currency,which allows America to live beyond its means,and that historically the deficit has expanded and contracted in line with the state of the US economy – it expands when domestic growth is strong.

The Biden administration,led by new US Trade Representative and vastly-experienced trade lawyer Katherine Tai,is going to have to develop a more coherent policy for trade and sanctions.

The new administration needs a more normal trade relationship with China and a more disciplined and strategic approach to the sanctions,along with support from the rest of the West for actions to curb China's more egregious trade and human rights practices.

Trump's abandonment of multilateralism for a bilateral approach to dealing with China has been a failure that has damaged the US and its relationships with its traditional allies more than it has harmed or contained China.

The US experience with trade sanctions is perhaps something that China itself could heed.Its assault on Australian exports has resulted in its steel and energy companies paying massive premiums for coal of lesser quality – and has caused blackouts – while also driving imports and the price of LNG (including Australian LNG) to record levels despite the pandemic.

Trump,the self-proclaimed"tariff man",and the China hawks who saw tariffs as a mechanism for containing China's challenge to the US might beg to differ,but the experience of the trade war on China has confirmed that,even with the"benefit"of a lop-sided trade deal negotiated with the benefit of duress,no one wins from trade wars.