Last weekend, Global Times, a mouthpiece for Beijing, took note of the pressure that America's industry leaders and trade bodies have been placing on the Biden administration to withdraw the punitive tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by the previous US administration.

In an editorial headlined "Biden suffers more than Beijing from high tariffs", it pointed to reports from the United States last week where nearly three dozen of the US' most influential business groups, representing retailers, chipmakers, farmers and others, asked the Biden administration to restart trade talks with China and cut tariffs on imports because the tariffs were a drag on the US economy.