A top US trade official took a veiled swipe at China on Thursday for a range of unfair trade practices, but also criticised the United States for being asleep at the wheel for far too long.
“They subsidised, they dumped, they erected regulatory barriers, they supported state-owned enterprises, they used every tool available to build their industries and capture a greater share of the American market,” said William Kimmitt, the US under secretary of commerce for international trade, without mentioning China by name.
But he added: “Our government too often stood by and watched as American factories closed, American production moved overseas, and American workers were overlooked and forgotten. Our leaders, too often, refused to recognise that reality, or worse, simply allowed it to happen.”
Touting the Trump administration’s “America first” trade policy, Kimmitt was speaking at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based non-profit conservative think tank.
The policy has been a cornerstone of Trump’s second term agenda, focusing on tariffs, supply chain decoupling and recalibrating trade agreements, in the name of what it officially calls “addressing unfair and unbalanced trade”.
America needs factories, furnaces and smelters, machine tools, abundant energy, skilled workers, and companies prepared to invest for the long term, Kimmitt added.
“We need the capacity to manufacture the materials and technologies required for our economy, our infrastructure and our national defence.”
Artificial intelligence (AI), critical minerals and energy were also on the docket at the event called “Advancing American Interests Through Trade, Investment and Commercial Diplomacy”.
Thursday’s comments follow US President Donald Trump’s trip to Beijing for a high-stakes summit with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, marking the first visit by a US president since Trump’s last visit to China in 2017.
The trip to China took place from May 14-15 after it was pushed back from the initial March date due to the US-Israeli war with Iran.
Trump took a delegation of 17 American business leaders to China, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Larry Fink of BlackRock and Brian Sikes of Cargill.
The group represented several key industries, including banking, technology and agriculture.
Despite high hopes from both countries, the summit finished with minimal deliverables and no substantive change on structural issues such as an unbalanced trade relationship, tensions around Taiwan, AI and semiconductors.
The outcomes of the visit were opaque, with a White House readout touting a newly established joint Board of Trade and another for investment.
Under the Board of Trade, the US government will seek public comment on what Chinese goods should qualify for reduced tariffs, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced in May.
The bilateral board is to initially identify around US$30 billion in non-strategic goods on which Beijing and Washington can eliminate or lower tariffs.
Additionally, the Trump administration announced that China had committed to buying US agricultural products and 200 Boeing aircraft. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
