U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Wednesday the administration would likely be unveiling tariffs against China soon, but cautioned that the precise details are still subject to change.
“The president is going to make a decision in the very near future,” Lighthizer told the House Ways and Means Committee. “Our view is that we have a very serious problem of losing our intellectual property, which is really the single biggest advantage of the American economy. … We are losing that to China in ways that is not reflective of the underlying economics.”
“There is no decision until the president makes it,” he added.
Lighthizer said previous administrations had tried to stop China from infringing on U.S. intellectual property rights in ways short of applying tariffs, but none of those efforts had any effect. He said his agency had extensively studied the issue of China’s trade policies and believed his staff had come up with a formula for tariffs that would apply “maximal pressure” on China.
He said that the existing world trade system, including the World Trade Organization, was “wholly inadequate” to deal with China because it is “state-dominated economy that rejects market principles.”
