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Donald Trump’s export controls hurting China could rankle US allies: analysts
Sanctions targeting Beijing’s hi-tech progress anticipated as report finds Washington has increasingly used such mechanisms in recent years
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Kawala Xiein Washington
US president-elect Donald Trump is expected to broaden usage of export-control tools including the foreign direct-product rule against China, possibly generating more friction with American allies, economic analysts warned on Thursday.
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The incoming Trump administration may want a “much broader decoupling” with China and is “prepared to bear costs” associated with such an act, including potentially greater resistance from allies, an ex-adviser to President Joe Biden told a panel hosted by the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics.
“Trump loves tariffs, but the perception that a second Trump administration is not going to be an active user of sanctions and export controls on China is just flatly wrong,” said Peter Harrell, now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, another Washington-based think tank.
“The Trump administration, they’re going to expand it when it comes back next month,” he added, referring to the policy practice.
Trump’s return to the White House next month has triggered widespread concern about a more intensive Sino-American trade war. The once and future president has promised to impose tariffs on Beijing from day one of his second term.
His picks for his economic policy team include Jamieson Greer for US trade representative, Scott Bessent for treasury secretary and Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary.
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