SHANGHAI — China has taken aim at major American businesses as it looks for ways to retaliate against President Trump’s mounting tariffs. So far it has targeted cars, beef and soybeans — and, apparently, Bob Woodward’s latest tale of Washington dysfunction and intrigue.

“Fear: Trump in the White House,” which Mr. Woodward wrote in 2018, is one of hundreds of American books held up by Chinese publishing regulators since the trade war intensified this year. Publishers inside and outside China say the release of American books has come to a virtual standstill, cutting them off from a big market of voracious readers.

“American writers and scholars are very important in every sector,” said Sophie Lin, an editor at a private publishing company in Beijing. “It has had a tremendous impact on us and on the industry.” After new titles failed to gain approval, she said, her company stopped editing and translating about a dozen pending books to cut costs.

The Chinese book world is cautiously optimistic that the partial trade truce reached this month between Beijing and Washington will break the logjam, according to book editors and others in the publishing industry who spoke to The New York Times. Already, they said, some have won approvals after China celebrated its National Day on Oct. 1, a politically perilous event that had Chinese officials on edge.