With tariffs coming down, does the U.S. or China have the upper hand?

Among the largest of all President Donald Trump’s tariffs this past year have been those on goods from China.

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down some of those tariffs, and Trump has rolled out new ones. So where does that leave the U.S. and China trade relationship now, a month out from a trade summit?

There are still tariffs on goods from China, but they have come down, said Oliver Melton, a director at Rhodium Group.

“The tariff rate on Chinese goods fell from a low 30s to about 21%, on average,” Melton said. “So China’s tariff rate now is only marginally higher than that applied to Turkey, or Vietnam, or Thailand, or even India, which means China is in a better position — comparatively speaking — to compete with those countries to sell into the United States.”

But the U.S. administration has been pretty clear about its intention to rebuild its tariff wall using other legal authority, said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“This is not a slam-dunk win for China,” Liu said.

There are other tariff tools the administration can use. They’re slower, have more red tape, and are limited in some way, but Liu said they are there.

“It would be inaccurate to say that at leadership level, Trump’s power is being significantly weakened,” she said.

On the other hand, China still has a lot of leverage of its own, said Scott Kennedy, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“China already had gained traction in the relationship in 2025, when the Chinese turned the tables on the United States and effectively used rare earths as a weapon to get the Trump administration to back down some,” Kennedy said.

The U.S. still has plenty of ways to pick a new trade fight with China. But the question remains — does it really want to?