President Trump is on the losing end of trade negotiations with China because some members of his team have a short-sighted view of the talks, according to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
“They are trying to cut some short-term deal that opens up the Chinese market a little bit, primarily things China was going to do anyway, in exchange for avoiding a trade war in the short term,” Rubio told reporters in the Senate on Tuesday.
Trump pulled back on possible tariffs on $150 billion worth of Chinese goods in response to China’s failure to enforce U.S. intellectual property rights, and is now debating a broader deal with China without the threat of tariffs.
Trump also frustrated China hawks through his recent willingness to reverse sanctions imposed on a tech company that helped Iran evade U.S. sanctions. Rubio regards the company, called ZTE, as an espionage threat, which exacerbates his frustration at the idea of using the sanctions as a bargaining chip in trade talks. The Trump administration has said it’s not using the ZTE sanctions to bargain for more market access, but there are few details on the pending deal, which has some, like Rubio, suspicious that Trump is about to trade one for the other.
“This goes beyond a simple trade dispute,” he said. “They are undertaking a plan to undermine and supplant the United States’ standing in the world economically … So, this is a long term geopolitical matter.”
The Senate Banking Committee voted earlier in the day to bar Trump from easing sanctions on ZTE unless the administration could certify that the company is no longer violating U.S. law — a high bar, given that the company was punished previously for lying about its compliance with sanctions on Iran.
“If the president and his team won’t follow through on tough sanctions against ZTE, it’s up to Congress to ensure that it happens,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday on the floor. “Both parties have come together today to strongly rebuke ZTE and the administration’s soft approach.”
Rubio and other U.S. officials, including Federal Communications Commissioner Ajit Pai, have warned that Chinese tech companies cooperate with intelligence agents for hacking and cyber espionage.
“They want to control global telecom,” the Florida Republican said during a recent Fox News interview. “They want to make it difficult for the American military to communicate with commanders and each other. They want to embed themselves in the technology of other countries.”
Rubio took aim Tuesday at a disagreement within the Trump administration about the purpose of the talks, as well as the president’s reported decision to cut a deal that slashes the trade deficit by $200 billion.
“This is not just about cutting some short term deal [in which] they open up their economy a little bit more and it’s worth $200 billion or whatever,” he said. “This is about changing the structure of our economic relationship, to the point where they can’t steal intellectual property.”
