U.S.-China Mutual Trust Committee
Early U.S. Trade with China
During the eighteenth century there was a “China-mania” among North American settlers for Asian goods such as tea. These settlers were consuming more than one million pounds of tea from China or the East Indies each year. And tea would go on to become a major point of contention in the American War of Independence.
As reported by Erika Lee in The Making of Asian America, A History2: On February 22, 1784, Empress of China was the first U.S. vessel to set sail from New York to Canton China to begin trading ginseng and animal furs in exchange for tea, porcelain, silk, furniture, and other goods – and tea was of course prominent. The trading of these highly desirable goods was strictly controlled by the Chinese government that insisted on being paid in silver. Most European countries, particularly Britain, soon ran a huge trade imbalance with China.
In 1808 U.S. Boston traders, faced with the abolishment of the transatlantic slave trade, decided to move their business expertise acquired from slave trading to growing the opium trade in China. They found that they could buy a pound of opium from Turkey for $2.50 and then sell it to the Chinese for $10. From 1821-39, these traders were estimated to have shipped ~80,000 pounds per year to China. In the year 1838, the total of foreign opium imported into China was close to 5.6 million pounds.
In 1846 the U.S. joined Britain and other European countries in their Second Opium War against China. “The agreement reached at the end of this war came to be known as the unequal treaties because in practice they gave foreigners privileged status and extracted concessions from the Chinese …The number of treaty ports increased …With the opening of the Yangtze River, foreigners also gained full access to the interior, and were free to travel and conduct business or missions anywhere in China.”
https://chineseheritagefoundation.org/early-u-s-china-trade
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/china-2