US President Donald Trump plans to trigger an investigation into intellectual property violations by China, in a push to tackle complaints that the economic relationship between the two countries is stacked in Beijing’s favour.
Trump planned to sign an executive memorandum on Monday directing US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to investigate Chinese laws, policies, practices or actions that might be “unreasonable or discriminatory” to US technology and intellectual property, senior US administration officials said in Washington.
China’s foreign and trade ministries did not respond to the announcement but state-run Xinhua said Washington’s threat to investigate China’s trade practices would “harm mutually beneficial China-US trade ties and ultimately hurt American consumers”.
The US officials said the investigation would focus on China’s “forceful transfer of technology” and “intellectual property theft” towards foreign companies doing business in China.
They said the investigation could take as much as a year, and either lead to negotiating an agreement with China, US unilateral trade remedy actions or entering into dispute settlement process in the World Trade Organisation.
