Axios’ Jonathan Swan reports on the growing influence of President Trump’s trade negotiator Robert Lighthizer who is “increasingly winning internal arguments over the administration’s inevitable economic confrontation with China.”
From Axios:
Lighthizer makes the pro-trade community nervous. He agrees with Trump that the mounting trade deficits with China are unacceptable. And he’s staking out such hardline negotiating positions with South Korea (on the KORUS trade deal) and Canada and Mexico (on NAFTA) that top Republicans on the Hill and in Washington’s business community fear he will torpedo both deals.
Behind-the-scenes: Shortly before Trump left for Asia, Lighthizer met with the entire economic team in the White House to discuss the U.S.-China relationship. If the Trump administration takes the hardline actions we expect them to eventually take on China, historians will look back on this meeting as a seminal moment.
The scene — these details were described to people outside of the White House and weren’t disputed by Lighthizer’s spokeswoman or the White House:
Lighthizer — in front of the whole economic team including Cohn, Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue — described the U.S.-China economic relationship as “bullshit.” Lighthizer laid out the history of the last 25 years of U.S.-China relations. He went through what each “dialogue” was called under presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama. His point: every administration comes up with a new catchword and strategic framework to describe the U.S.-China relationship, but the trade deficit with China just keeps ballooning by the billions.
Read the rest here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.