Washington: Observing that the outgoing Biden administration’s approach to China followed closely what Donald Trump was doing in his first term, a former White House official has said that one should expect a continuation of the China policy in Trump’s second term.
“We are going to see more continuity than change from the Biden administration approach to China,” Lisa Curtis, who served as deputy assistant to president Trump and as National Security Council senior director for South and Central Asia from 2017 to 2021, told PTI in an interview.
“Because I believe that the Biden administration approach to China followed closely what Trump was doing, particularly in the last two years he was in office,” said Curtis, who is currently a Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at Center for a New American Security, a think tank.
“The Biden administration kept the tariffs on China. They kept the export controls. In fact, the Biden administration has gone further and put more export controls on the US exporting advanced semiconductor technology to China. This will continue. The technology controls will continue. The tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the United States will continue, probably even go up under President Trump,” she said.
Curtis said the strategic competition between the two countries will continue as well. The Trump administration will continue investing in defence technology, ensuring that the US is keeping up with China and “doing everything it needs to do to create deterrence,” she said.
“Trump has talked a lot about peace through strength. Well, part of that strength is having a strong military to deter your enemies. So, I fully expect he will continue investing in the US defence industrial base and making sure the US has the most innovative and best military equipment around the globe,” she said.
“The policy will be largely the same, but there will be more of a focus on trying to negotiate with China, negotiate a trade deal. President-elect Trump prides himself on being a good negotiator. So, I think we can expect him to put forward efforts to get a good deal for the American people. And at the same time, he’ll be interacting with presidency rather than allowing the relationship to fall into sort of a cold war,” Curtis said.
