The United States is striving for a more “constructive” relationship with China after this year’s trade war and will continue to pursue a “managed” bilateral trade relationship, its chief trade envoy said, despite concerns lingering over China’s grip on critical minerals and pushback over the White House’s recent approval of H200 AI chip sales.
The comments by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer came after Beijing and Washington fought fiercely throughout the year over tariffs.
The Chinese government imposed rare earth export controls and also turned away American soybeans when the administration of US President Donald Trump elevated its China tariff to a level close to a trade embargo.
“It’s really important to acknowledge that President Trump is very focused on having a constructive relationship with China,” Greer told an event hosted by the Atlantic Council on Wednesday.
Bilateral tensions have been temporarily de-escalated following Trump's and Chinese President Xi Jinping's meeting in South Korea in late October. As the US president is slated to have a state visit to China in April and the two leaders will meet a total of four times next year, bilateral trade flows have resumed quickly.
Greer said that despite the US having a lot of leverage over China, “the president’s interest is not in blowing up everything, right? And that includes our relationship with China”.
The US trade envoy helped design Trump’s so-called liberation day global tariffs and also sat next to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during five rounds of trade talks with China this year.
“I think that US-China trade just needs to be managed,” Greer said, mentioning that the bilateral deficit, a high priority on the Trump administration’s work agenda, could drop a quarter for this year.
“Since our Geneva talks, we’ve been on this path of China to be more constructive. And since May, we’ve seen more balance come into the relationship on the good side.”
The latest Chinese customs data showed the country’s trade surplus with the US dropped 21.3 per cent to US$257 billion in the first 11 months.
US-bound merchandise shipments fell 18.9 per cent from a year earlier to US$385.9 billion in the same period, making them the third largest source of US imports after Canada and Mexico.
However, China’s export surplus surpassed US$1 trillion in the January-November period, well placed to be a yearly record high, as its exports to non-US markets jumped.
In addition to trade, many lawmakers criticised Trump’s decision on Nvidia AI chip sales to China as a colossal economic and national security failure.
“The H200s are vastly more capable than anything China can make and gifting them to Beijing would squander America’s primary advantage in the AI race,” according to a Monday joint release by eight Democratic senators, led by Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“President Trump must reverse course and recommit to preserving American dominance in AI,” they urged.
Also, Republican Senator Pete Ricketts and Democratic Senator Chris Coons filed a bill called SAFE CHIPS Act last week, seeking to restrict Beijing’s access to advanced US artificial intelligence chips for two-and-a-half years. The legislation was also co-sponsored by Republican Dave McCormick and Tom Cotton, as a sign of internal disagreement over the Trump approval.
At Wednesday’s event, Greer denied the need to set up specific tariff arrangements for China, saying the current level of around 45 per cent is already the highest worldwide.
The US trade envoy also took a pragmatic view, arguing that he prefers unilateral actions rather than an international alliance over China.
“We hear this sometimes when partners say we should align on China, oftentimes that is code for ‘Don’t put tariffs on me,’” he said.
Also, “people in Washington like to talk about China hawks and China doves. That’s a distinction that doesn’t really resonate with the Trump administration. Because we’re just pro-American.”
When testifying before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies on Tuesday, Greer said that Chinese companies have already placed orders for 3 million metric tons (3.31 million tons) of soybeans so far and are working steadily towards the 12 million tons target by the end of the crop season in March.
“We continue to maintain leverage on the Chinese in the way of tariffs. And of course, all this is on the condition that China complies with this agreement,” he added. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
