Trump renews threat to sever relations with China the day after high-level talks | Business and economy

US President Donald Trump renewed his threat to sever ties with China on Thursday, a day after the countries held talks with two top diplomats and his trade representative said he did not consider decoupling the economies of the United States and China to be a viable option.

The leading US diplomat for East Asia described US-China relations as “strained” after the first high-level face-to-face diplomatic talks in months, although he said Beijing had re-committed to the first part of a trade deal reached earlier this year and that the coming weeks would show if there had been any progress.

Trump has made balancing the huge US trade deficit with China a priority, but relations have deteriorated as his election campaign heats up in November.

On Thursday, Trump took to Twitter to clarify his position after sales representative Robert Lighthizer spoke to a House committee.

“The US certainly retains a political option of complete decoupling from China under various conditions,” he wrote.

It was not Ambassador Lighthizer’s fault (on committee yesterday) that I may not have been clear, but the US certainly maintains a political option of full decoupling from China under various conditions. Thanks very much!

– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020

Lighthizer told the committee on Wednesday that it didn’t think this was viable.

“Do I think you can sit down and decouple the US economy from the Chinese economy?” He said. “No, I think that was a political option years ago. I don’t think it’s a… sensible political option right now. “

His office did not have an immediate comment on Trump’s tweet.

US-China relations are at their lowest point since the coronavirus pandemic that began in China late last year. The US has been hit hard, and Trump and his administration have repeatedly accused Beijing of not being transparent about the outbreak.

Points of friction

In addition to several points of friction, the countries are also at odds over China’s move to impose new security laws on Hong Kong, which has led Trump to initiate a process to end U.S. special treatment for the territory.

Trump made the deterioration in the relationship clear over the past month when he said he had no interest in speaking now with President Xi Jinping, whom he had previously celebrated as a friend, and suggested he might even cut ties with China.

Lighthizer said he expected more supply chains to be relocated to the US due to tax and regulatory changes, but also noted that the US-China trade deal will lead to significant positive changes and an increase in Chinese purchases of US goods and goods Services would lead.

The US-China Phase 1 trade deal requires China to provide US $ 200 billion in additional US goods and services over two years.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met in Hawaii on Wednesday for a day of talks with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi, but these appear to have done little to improve the mood.

At the start of the Hawaii meeting, Trump signed a law calling for sanctions against those responsible for suppressing Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region, prompting Beijing to threaten retaliation.

“Strained” relationships

David Stilwell, the assistant secretary for East Asia, told reporters that China’s stance in the talks could not be described as accommodating and described relations as “strained”.

He said recent Chinese actions against India, the South China Sea and Hong Kong have not been constructive and Washington looks forward to China rethinking its plans for Hong Kong security legislation.

At the same time, Stilwell said China has re-committed to implement the trade deal, adding that efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons are another area of ​​potential cooperation.

“The trade deal – the Chinese have committed to it several times … and insisted they go through with it,” Stilwell said. “This is a good acid test to see if they will become cooperative partners.”

“We’ll see in the next week or two, or how long it will take [if] they are starting to meet their obligations, ”he said.

China described the Hawaii talks as “constructive,” but its State Department said Yang told Pompeo that Washington must respect Beijing’s positions on key issues and stop meddling on issues such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang while it works to reestablish ties.

Hours after the meeting ended, China said its top parliamentary body will review Hong Kong’s draft security law during a session beginning Thursday.

Foreign ministers of the G7 countries, including Pompeo, had previously issued a statement calling on China not to implement the law, which critics call an attack on the democratic freedoms of the territory.