China’s Foreign Trade Relations with the United States and the European Union in the Context of the PRC’s Development Strategy Until 2050

The paper focuses on China’s foreign trade relations with its main partners, competitors, the USA, and the EU in 2010–2019, covering different periods in the development of the global economy and politics. The years 2010–2017 were the years of globalization and open markets. The year 2017 saw attacks on China, accusations and threats from President D. Trump. In 2018, D. Trump, appealing to national legislation, launched a trade war with China. In violation of international agreements and principles, he imposed additional duties against Chinese imports, to which China responded quickly with similar measures. By the end of 2019, the confrontation between the parties eased to a certain extent. On January 15, 2020, the USA and China concluded an agreement, which formally completed the first stage of the settlement of trade and economic contradictions between the parties. The analysis showed that China’s economic cooperation with the leaders of the world economy developed quite evenly and steadily in 2010–2018, and only in 2019 there was a drop in exports and imports of goods in relations with the USA. During the research, the authors apply the methods of systematic logical, economic, and statistical analysis, induction and deduction, expert assessments, and empirical generalizations. The applied methods allow the authors to determine trends in the development of foreign trade relations of China with the main partners and identify the features of their development in changing foreign policy and economic conditions, which is the purpose and novelty of this research. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.