Joe Biden’s China trade policy: make America great again, not Wall Street
- There are signs banks will be pushed down the pecking order in Washington’s new mission to bring jobs and industries home
- Observers say financiers have dominated US trade policy since the 1980s but their influence appears to be on the wane
In an interview on National Public Radio in the US on December 30, Sullivan criticised the administration of Donald Trump for what he called favouring US financial conglomerates in trade talks with Beijing.
He asked how “making it easier for the likes of JPMorgan or Goldman Sachs to be able to carry out financial activities in Beijing or Shanghai” improved jobs and wages in the US.
Criticising policies of the outgoing administration is not unusual, but the voices coming out of the Biden camp could be seen as co-opting Trump’s “Make America Great Again” mantra. The message is to rebuild US manufacturing industries and boost employment, especially considering the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In this scenario, the interests of investment banks get pushed down the pecking order. That would be a significant shift from the domination of American policymaking by Wall Street financiers since the 1980s, according to Michael Pettis, a professor of finance at Peking University, who spent more than a decade working at US investment banks before moving to academia.