President Trump used his visit to China to stress the need for Chinese officials to “change the paradigm” that has led to trade imbalances with the United States, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. “Trump called for China to give fair and reciprocal treatment to U.S. companies and exports to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and rebalance the economic relationship,” Tillerson told reporters Wednesday.
Trump’s team outlined “very, very specific exchanges” about the U.S.-China economic relationship, and stressed the need for China to remove “barriers to U.S. imports of goods to China [and] forced transfer of technology concerns,” Tillerson said. Those rebukes were obscured by Trump’s comment that he doesn’t “blame China” for taking advantage of a lax U.S. trade policy, but Tillerson dismissed any suggestion that the administration was taking a softer line with the Chinese.
“There was a little bit of tongue in cheek in that characterization,” Tillerson said. “I think his characterization of not blaming a large developing country from doing what they can do — you know, I feel the same way about a number of actions that countries take — if the door is open, you’re going to walk through it. And I think in this case the president was simply saying, look, previous administrations have kind of left this trade door open.”
That was a defense of Trump’s remarks following his meeting with President Xi Jinping. “I don’t blame China,” Trump said. ”After all, who can blame a country for being able to take advantage of another country for benefit of their citizens? I give China great credit.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer seized on those comments as a sign that Trump is abandoning his hardline trade policies regarding the Asian power.
“The president may not blame China, but I do, and so do millions of Americans who voted for him and others who have lost their jobs at the hands of China’s rapacious trade policies,” the New York Democrat said in a Thursday statement. “After campaigning like a lion against China’s trade practices, the president is governing like a lamb. Rather than treating China with kid gloves, the president should be much tougher with China, as he promised he would be on the campaign trail.”
Tillerson maintained that the administration is rigorous in moving to alter the dynamics of U.S.-China trade relations.
“So it was a very detailed discussion of the progress that has been made and the lack of progress,” he said. “I think what the president was just reflecting on is, look, we are where we are because previous administrations, whether through benign neglect — which is my own characterization of it — or for whatever reasons, allowed this to happen, and allowed it to get so out of balance that now it’s not an easy thing to rebalance.”
