Advantage America: The U.S.-China Clean Energy Trade Relationship in 2011

More than half a trillion dollars’ worth of goods and services are traded by the world’s two leading economies, the United States and China. In 2011, the last year for which complete data were available for the purposes of this report, China exported $4 worth of goods and services for every $1 exported by the United States. Current trade flows reflect the reality that China is a low-cost producer and the United States a high-volume consumer of finished products. But underlying these truths is a trading relationship that is more nuanced, in which the United States has key strengths that often go unrecognized.