But tire importers maintain that the U.S. tire industry made a decision to get out of the low end of the market before Chinese imports increased. “Over the past two decades, many U.S. tire manufacturers have adopted a business strategy of eliminating U.S. production for the lower-cost replacement-tire market in order to concentrate on more profitable tires,” Vic DeIorio, executive vice president of importer GITI, said in a statement. “Most U.S. producers of these lower-cost tires exited because they concluded that it was in their financial interest under normal market conditions to concentrate on higher-end market segments.”

So will the trade tensions stop at tires? Maryland’s Morici said a greater problem faced by Obama is the question of whether China should be allowed to subsidize its exports by keeping the exchange rate for the Chinese currency artificially low against the U.S. dollar, which U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called “manipulation” by Beijing at his confirmation hearings in January.

“Obama hasn’t focused on systemic problems with regards to China, namely its currency, that give rise to this problem,” Morici said. “He promised to do that in the campaign and he walked away from that.”

Experts noted that China maintains similar tariffs on 17 types of American goods, including a 46 percent levy on optical fiber, 61 percent on Spandex, and 91 percent on chloroform.

China currently has a stash of $750 billion in U.S. Treasuries, $500 billion worth of bonds from government-controlled mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, $150 billion of U.S. corporate bonds, and $100 billion in American stocks.

Prestowitz noted that any Chinese efforts to bail out of U.S. investments inevitably would reduce the value of Chinese remaining investments in the U.S. “Are they going to do that for their pride?” Prestowitz asked.