Mubasher: US President Donald Trump said that a trade accord with China will not only have to address the US trade deficit, but also include changes to Chinese policies to protect US workers and firms.
“I have great respect for President Xi, and we are now working on a new trade deal with China,” President Trump said in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.
A deal “must include a real, structural change to end unfair trade practices, reduce our chronic trade deficit, and protect American jobs,” Trump noted.
Past US administrations and legislators are blamed “for allowing this travesty to happen” between the US and China, he said, noting that his tariff strategy is effective.
“We are now making it clear to China that after years of targeting our industries, and stealing our intellectual property, the theft of American jobs and wealth has come to an end,” he said, noting that the “Treasury is receiving billions and billions of dollars” thanks to the recently levied tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports.”
It is worth noting that US and Chinese negotiations last week yielded progress, but US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that there is still a lot of work to do, while talks did not even start drawing a framework of an agreement on paper.
On a side note, the US president asked members of Congress to approve his new trade deal with Mexico and Canada.
“I hope you can pass the USMCA into law so that we can bring back our manufacturing jobs in even greater numbers, expand American agriculture, protect intellectual property, and ensure that more cars are proudly stamped with our four beautiful words: Made in the USA,” the US president noted.
The USMCA, short for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, was reached last September and was signed by Trump and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit last November.
Trump also called on lawmakers to approve the US Reciprocal Trade Act.
The legislation would allow the US president to levy duties on products, if he establishes that either tariff or non-tariff barriers on those products are higher than those placed by Washington.
The act was necessary “so that if another country places an unfair tariff on an American product, we can charge them the exact same tariff on the same product that they sell to us,” Trump said.
