Since 2018, the United States has been responding to China’s meteoric economic rise and its own relative decline with a slew of protectionist policies, such as subsidies, at-the-border and behind-the-border trade barriers, and foreign investment restrictions. These policies have naturally elicited retaliations from the Chinese government. As a result, over the past few years, great-power competition between the United States and China has intensified.

However, despite this intensification in competition and increase in trade protectionism, bilateral trade and investment have not diminished. What explains this contradictory phenomenon?