How many trade agreements has the Biden administration finalized in 2025 and how do they compare to Trump's year?
Executive summary
Available sources show the Biden administration in 2025 has focused on sectoral frameworks and enforcement actions rather than concluding traditional, binding free trade agreements; USTR press releases list negotiations and working groups in 2025 but do not enumerate new finalized FTAs (available sources do not mention a definitive count of "finalized" trade agreements in 2025) [1]. By contrast, reporting on the Trump administration emphasizes renegotiations and several high-profile deals across his terms — e.g., USMCA and the Phase One China deal — and contemporary 2025 Trump statements claim multiple rapid reciprocal and framework agreements in his second term [2] [3] [4].
1. Biden’s 2025 trade activity: frameworks, missions and working groups, not traditional FTAs
In 2025 the Biden administration is publicly advancing “new and innovative trade arrangements” — model negotiating texts, IPEF-style sectoral frameworks, USMCA enforcement activity, and numerous negotiating rounds with partners such as Kenya, the Philippines and the UK — yet USTR material and contemporaneous timelines emphasize negotiations, working groups, and side letters rather than the signature of new, binding free‑trade agreements in 2025 [5] [1] [6]. The USDA fact sheet highlights wins on agricultural market access and 17 trade missions hosted during the administration, but it documents side letters (for example with Chile in 2024) and export promotion rather than newly ratified, comprehensive FTAs in 2025 [7].
2. What counts as a “trade agreement” — divergent definitions complicate comparisons
Sources make clear the Biden team favors sectoral or framework deals (e.g., Indo‑Pacific Economic Framework) and “innovative trade arrangements” that often lack tariff‑cutting market‑access chapters found in traditional FTAs; some scholars and trade analysts therefore distinguish between binding FTAs and non‑binding frameworks or side letters [5] [8] [9]. That definitional split matters: counting “agreements” can produce very different tallies depending on whether you include frameworks, side letters, memoranda of intent, or only fully negotiated, signed-and-ratified FTAs [8] [9].
3. Trump’s record and 2025 claims: renegotiation, phase-one deals, and rapid reciprocal pacts
Trump’s earlier administration renegotiated NAFTA into USMCA and struck a Phase One trade accord with China; the archival White House and USTR record treat those as signature accomplishments [2] [3]. Reporting from 2025 cites the second Trump administration’s push for “reciprocal tariffs” and a burst of framework and bilateral reciprocal trade announcements — the White House fact sheets and trackers describe multiple framework deals and at least some concluded reciprocal trade agreements in 2025, though independent counts vary [4] [10]. Analysts note Trump historically used tariffs as a negotiation tool that sometimes produced agreements like the Phase One deal [11].
4. Head‑to‑head: available sources do not provide a straight numeric comparison for 2025
The sources provided do not give a clear, single number for “how many trade agreements Biden finalized in 2025” and do not supply a contemporaneous, definitive count of agreements finalized by Trump in the same one‑year window for direct apples‑to‑apples comparison; instead, they document different types of actions — enforcement, missions, frameworks, side letters, and a mix of formal deals across administrations — so any numeric claim would require additional primary documentation or a consistent counting rule not present in these sources (available sources do not mention a definitive count for Biden in 2025; available sources do not present a direct one‑year numeric comparison to Trump) [1] [7] [2].
5. Competing viewpoints and hidden agendas to watch for in counting claims
Some outlets and policy centers classify Biden’s approach as “no‑trade” or “protectionist” because it eschews new preferential FTAs and keeps tariffs in place; others emphasize coalition‑building and targeted sectoral deals as a modern trade strategy [12] [8]. Conversely, White House statements from the Trump side frame rapid reciprocal deals and tariff leverage as decisive wins; independent trackers (e.g., Atlantic Council) stress that tariffs were also a bargaining chip that yielded a few headline agreements, not a wholesale renewal of traditional FTA expansion [11] [10]. Political audiences on both sides have incentives to inflate counts: administrations portray outcome lists as wins, while critics highlight the absence of binding, comprehensive market‑access agreements.
6. What’s needed to answer this precisely
To deliver a rigorous numeric comparison you must choose a definition (e.g., only ratified FTAs; include side letters and frameworks; include memoranda of intent) and then consult primary sources — USTR press releases, treaty texts, Congressional notifications, and now‑dated White House fact sheets — for 2025 entries under that definition. The documents collected here document activity but do not produce a single, consistent tally under any one counting rule [1] [5] [4].
If you want, I can: (a) assemble a candidate counting rule (e.g., “ratified FTAs only”) and search these sources for entries that meet it, or (b) compile a timeline of every USTR 2025 announcement and White House fact sheet item that uses the word “agreement,” “signed,” “side letter,” or “framework” and label each by type so you can pick which to count. Which do you prefer?