Inside OutWhy Biden’s China trade policy is still haunted by the ghost of Trump

Name: US trade chief calls for ‘pragmatic approach’ in reveal of China strategy
Uploaded: 2021-10-10T20:00:15.000Z
Duration: 2 min 18 s
Description: US trade chief calls for ‘pragmatic approach’ in reveal of China strategy

Damaging though the trade war is, Biden cannot afford to risk mid-term votes. Also, his administration is more preoccupied with defence and security than trade and economics

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Then US president Donald Trump, surrounded by business leaders and administration officials, prepares to sign a memorandum on intellectual property tariffs on hi-tech goods from China, at the White House in Washington on March 22, 2018. Photo: Reuters

David Dodwell

Published: 4:00am, 11 Oct 2021

Back in April, Yale University’s Stephen Roach questioned US President Joe Biden’s China policy – in particular his trade policy: “Why has he singled out the China-Trump policy as one that is worth sustaining, when he has literally tried to wipe the slate clean of every other potential Trump policy that he inherited? That’s an important question that needs to be answered.”

It is important not just for the United States and China, but for the world economy as leaders address the challenge of recovering from the Covid-19 recession and see trade restoration as crucial.

It is also important because Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump’s catastrophically misaligned trade policies – not just on China but in his abandonment of multilateral cooperation in favour of schoolyard-bully bilateralism – have inflicted colossal economic harm which needs to be remedied.

Six months of silence later, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai last week set about the task of answering – only to offer more procrastination. As the Financial Times Trade Secrets newsletter recounted: “Katherine Tai is extremely good at speaking fluently while revealing nothing.”

Chad Bown at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics was more polite but equally clear: “Anyone looking for a dramatic policy change toward China from the last administration will not find any evidence of it.”

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US trade chief calls for ‘pragmatic approach’ in reveal of China strategy

So the trade war with China is not about to end any time soon. And Trump’s tariffs remain firmly in place. Combing through Tai’s carefully veiled text, Bown nevertheless identified three developments.

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Damaging though the trade war is, Biden cannot afford to risk mid-term votes. Also, his administration is more preoccupied with defence and security than trade and economics

Damaging though the trade war is, Biden cannot afford to risk mid-term votes. Also, his administration is more preoccupied with defence and security than trade and economics