Robert Porter, a former top White House adviser who left last year after amid accusations that he abused women, criticized President Trump’s policies toward China Friday in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Porter said the president’s emphasis on reducing the trade deficit between the countries was the wrong approach.
“Absent a change in Americans’ overall saving and consumption patterns, narrowing our export gap with China would only widen our trade deficit with the rest of the world,” Porter wrote, calling deficit reduction efforts “shortsighted.”
Porter stepped down from his job as White House staff secretary in February 2018 following allegations that he abused his two ex-wives. His departure created a further controversy over security clearances among top officials because he had been working with a temporary one for about a year, having not received permanent clearance from the FBI.
[Previous coverage: White House: We ‘could have done better’ handling Rob Porter allegations]
Trump has repeatedly cited the U.S. trade deficit with China, which hit a record of $419 billion in 2018, according to a Commerce Department report this month, as a major concern and something he is intent to reverse.
But Porter said the administration should instead see the deficit as an advantage, and that getting rid of it would give the U.S. less leverage over Beijing. The trade deficit is the reason that Trump’s tariffs are having a major impact on China, he argued.
“Because Chinese exports to Americans dwarf our exports to them, trade restrictions can inflict disproportionate harm to China’s economy,” he said. The administration should instead redouble its efforts to force China to reform its policies, such as stopping its practice of using market access to force companies to turn over technology.
Porter said Trump needed to show that the tariffs were just tools and not the administration’s long-term policy. “Now is a time to prove his critics wrong and demonstrate — beyond China — that he is in fact ‘using tariffs to negotiate,’ as he told the [Wall Street] Journal in October, rather than pursuing protectionism as a policy,” he wrote.
