Summary
Sacks predicted that in the 2020 election both parties would compete to be tough on China, that Trump would blame China for COVID-19 and brand Biden “Beijing Biden,” that Biden would not defend China but instead adopt a tougher China line, and that U.S.–China economic decoupling would emerge as a bipartisan policy direction. On all major elements, subsequent events match his forecast.

1. 2020 campaign: China became a central, bipartisan attack line

• Trump blaming China for COVID-19. Throughout 2020, Trump repeatedly blamed China for the pandemic, calling it the “Chinese virus” and insisting the outbreak was China’s fault. (cnbc.com)
• “Beijing Biden” framing. Republican messaging explicitly used the label “Beijing Biden” and tied Biden to China. FactCheck.org documented an RNC robocall that repeatedly called him “Beijing Biden.” (factcheck.org)
  The 2020 Republican National Convention coverage notes Donald Trump Jr. deriding Biden as “Beijing Biden,” and Trump allies launched a website, BeijingBiden.com, focused on Biden’s alleged coziness with China. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Biden did not defend China; he tried to be tougher. NPR/GBH reported that Trump and Biden were “battl[ing] over who is ‘weak on China,’” each accusing the other of being soft, with Biden ads saying Trump “rolled over for the Chinese.” (wgbh.org)
  During the campaign Biden called Xi Jinping a “thug” and emphasized that the U.S. “does need to get tough with China,” including over Xinjiang camps and Hong Kong. (bloomberg.com) This is the opposite of “defending” China and fits Sacks’s expectation that Biden would move to Trump’s right rhetorically on toughness.

Verdict on the campaign piece: Correct. China policy became a bipartisan campaign issue, Trump ran heavily on blaming China, Biden was attacked as “Beijing Biden,” and Biden adopted explicitly tough rhetoric rather than defending Beijing.

2. Post‑2020: bipartisan policy direction toward decoupling

Sacks’s deeper claim was not just about rhetoric but that actual U.S. policy would move toward economic decoupling, with support from both parties. Evidence since 2020 supports this in key sectors:

• Trump-era tariffs preserved and expanded under Biden. Analyses from CNN, NPR and others note that Biden kept Trump’s Section 301 tariffs on roughly $300–370 billion of Chinese imports and, in 2024, added higher tariffs on strategic products such as EVs, batteries, solar cells, steel, aluminum and semiconductors. (amp.cnn.com) Republican leaders even praised Biden for keeping Trump’s China tariffs, underscoring the bipartisan consensus. (waysandmeans.house.gov)
• CHIPS and Science Act and tech supply-chain reorientation. The 2022 CHIPS and Science Act—explicitly aimed at reducing reliance on Chinese semiconductors and boosting U.S. production—passed the Senate 64–33 and the House 243–187, a clearly bipartisan vote. (aflcio.org) Guardrails in the law restrict recipients from expanding advanced-chip capacity in China, pushing production back to the U.S. or allied countries. (democrats-science.house.gov)
• Export controls and sanctions on Chinese high tech and human‑rights abusers. In October 2022 the Commerce Department imposed sweeping export controls limiting China’s access to advanced chips and manufacturing equipment; these controls have since been expanded, explicitly framed as countering China’s tech rise. (en.wikipedia.org) Separately, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act—passed with overwhelming bipartisan support—presumes goods from Xinjiang are made with forced labor and has led to bans on imports from scores of Chinese companies, forcing firms to shift supply chains. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Institutionalizing competition with China in Congress. The House established a bipartisan Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party in January 2023, with members from both parties, to coordinate economic, technological, and security policy toward China; Reuters notes that this China-focused committee is being continued across Congresses, signaling durable cross‑party commitment. (en.wikipedia.org)
• Measured but real decoupling of trade and critical sectors. Empirical work and policy analysis find that U.S.–China economic ties are being restructured rather than fully severed. A St. Louis Fed study shows China’s share of U.S. imports in communications equipment fell from 62% in 2016 to 44% in 2023, and in information technology goods from 46% to 27%, consistent with deliberate diversification away from China in high‑risk sectors. (stlouisfed.org) A Journal of International Economics paper similarly finds U.S. trade policy has produced “real” U.S.–China decoupling in bilateral trade, with China’s share of total U.S. imports dropping from 22% to 16% between 2017 and 2022 as imports shift to other countries. (sciencedirect.com) Consulting and policy reports from Bain and others characterize U.S.–China tech and supply-chain decoupling as an ongoing, defining trend. (bain.com)

Biden and G‑7 leaders do explicitly say they seek “de‑risking, not decoupling,” to signal they don’t want a total rupture. (cnbc.com) However, the concrete policies—tariffs, onshoring subsidies, export controls, forced‑labor import bans, and congressional actions—collectively amount to partial, sectoral decoupling from China, especially in technology and sensitive supply chains, and they have broad bipartisan backing.

Verdict on the policy piece: While the U.S. has not fully severed economic ties with China, a sustained, bipartisan policy push has clearly moved the relationship toward selective economic decoupling and de‑risking in strategic sectors, which is what Sacks was pointing to.

Overall assessment

Taken together:

1. The 2020 election did in fact feature a bipartisan competition over who was tougher on China, with Trump blaming China for COVID-19 and branding Biden “Beijing Biden,” and Biden responding by hardening his own stance rather than defending Beijing. (theguardian.com)
2. Since then, U.S. policy has moved in a bipartisan way toward partial economic decoupling from China, especially in technology and critical supply chains, via tariffs, industrial policy, export controls, and rights‑based import bans. (aflcio.org)

Given the prediction’s level of generality (“decoupling is going to happen” and will be “bipartisan”), and the clear alignment of both campaign dynamics and subsequent policy with that description, the forecast is best judged as right in substance, even though what has emerged is targeted, sectoral decoupling rather than total economic separation.