US certainly retains political option to decouple China, says Donald Trump (File)
Washington:
President Donald Trump warned Thursday that “full decoupling” between the deeply interwoven US and Chinese economies remains a potential policy.
The United States “certainly has a political option, under various conditions, to fully decouple China. Thank you!” Trump tweeted.
He wrote that he was responding to comments from his sales representative Robert Lighthizer, who was at the forefront of the trade war negotiations with Beijing.
Lighthizer told a congressional committee on Wednesday that China has so far complied with the terms of a “phase one” deal that had settled the dispute, but that decoupling the two economic giants is now impossible.
“It was a political option years ago, but I don’t think it is a reasonable political option or policy at this point,” he said.
Lighthizer described himself as uncompromising on Chinese politics and described the Trump administration’s plans to “reset” the World Trade Organization, in large part so that it can better curb Beijing policies which, according to him go against the rules of free trade.
But his admission that the two largest economies in the world are inextricably linked, despite Trump’s aggressive campaign to push American companies to relocate production to the United States, has caused anxiety in Republican circles.
Trump tried to let his trade manager hang up.
“It was not the fault of Ambassador Lighthizer (yesterday in committee) in that I may not have made myself understood.”
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
