Washington, United States:
Joe Biden will maintain Donald Trump’s trade-war tariffs on China for the time getting when he moves into the Oval Office subsequent month, the president-elect has told US media.
Rancor and recrimination have defined the partnership involving the world’s two most significant economies more than the final 4 years, with Trump slapping import costs on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods with tariffs.
Biden meanwhile has been a strident critic of China’s human rights record and analysts have predicted his administration will sustain a hawkish posture towards Beijing.
“I’m not going to make any immediate moves, and the same applies to the tariffs,” Biden told the New York Times in an interview published Wednesday.
“I’m not going to prejudice my options.”
Since winning final month’s presidential election, Biden has hinted at a trade policy that would mend Washington’s alliances with Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
He has stated the United States should join forces with other globe democracies to present a united front in international trade policy as a counterweight to China.
Biden has targeted Beijing on a number of fronts and singled out Chinese President Xi Jinping throughout a debate with other presidential candidates in February.
“This is a guy who doesn’t have a democratic – with a small d – bone in his body,” he stated then. “This is a guy who is a thug.”
His campaign also referred to the crackdown on the Muslim Uighur minority in China’s Xinjiang province as a “genocide,” provocative language to Beijing with prospective ramifications below international law.
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