The Biden administration will review all national security measures implemented by former President Donald Trump, including the first phase of the U.S.-China trade deal signed in January 2020, White House spokesman Leonardo Psaki said Friday. On the same day, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that China had made its largest purchase of U.S. corn to date, the second-largest single-day sale on record.
Asked if President Biden believes the deal is still valid, Psaki said at a White House briefing, “All of the initiatives that were put in place by the last administration are under review as it relates to our national security measures, so I wouldn’t assume that things are going to move forward.”
She said the Biden Administration is focused on “taking a strong position on the U.S.-China relationship, which means coordinating and communicating with our allies and partners on how we will work with China.”
President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also said the same day that the U.S. alliance system is the cornerstone of America’s future geopolitical success and victory over other important transnational challenges that affect the American way of Life. To defeat the Chinese model, he said, the United States must also join forces with allies and partners in democratic countries.
According to an analysis released this month by Chad Bown, a researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, cited by Reuters, China will buy 42 percent less U.S. goods in 2020 than China has committed to in trade deals.
The White House did not immediately comment on whether the Biden administration is actively considering withdrawing from the first phase of the U.S.-China trade deal.
Doug Barry, a spokesman for the National Committee for U.S.-China Trade, said it makes sense for the Biden team to review the trade deal and other Trump policies, but he downplayed concerns about any immediate withdrawal from the agreement.
We’re not reading too much into the process at this point,” he told Reuters. China has 11 months to make good on its commitment to buy another $200 billion of U.S. products.”
He noted that China has already bought a significant amount of agricultural products, boosting employment in the sector, and said Chinese officials have signaled that they plan to fulfill their commitments in the trade deal.
Doing so, he added, “is key to ultimately eliminating tariffs imposed on each other’s goods that have harmed both sides and that have cost American people jobs, driven down gross domestic product (GDP) and increased the cost of living. Withdrawing from this agreement could make these tariffs and the damage they cause permanent.”
Also on Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that China made its largest purchase of U.S. corn to date to meet a surge in demand for animal feed.
The USDA said 2.108 million tons of U.S. corn was sold to China for shipment in the 2020/21 market year, according to reports from private exporters. This is the second largest single-day sale on record, behind only the 3.72 million tons sold to the former Soviet Union in January 1991.
It also surpassed China’s previous largest single-day U.S. corn purchase of 1.937 million tons in July 2020.
Beijing has been seeking to increase corn imports after storms and drought led to tight domestic supplies, according to three industry sources who told Reuters in October.
Combined with purchases earlier in the week, China received a total of 3.74 million tons of supplies from the United States.
Also of note, a U.S. official said Friday that the United States is committed to “positive, constructive and proactive engagement” with all World Trade Organization members on reforming the body and is actively considering the next director general, according to Reuters.
David Bisbee, U.S. chargé d’affaires at the WTO, said, “The United States stands ready to engage on all of these tough issues.”
He also mentioned the ongoing consultations on fisheries subsidies and the next ministerial meeting, among other issues.
Meanwhile, British International Trade Secretary Liz Truss told a World Economic Forum online panel that “some of China’s actions in areas such as forced technology transfer, subsidies to state-owned enterprises and infringement of intellectual property rights have led to some distrust of the global trading system .” ; and further said, “Some things are unfair, and if state-owned enterprises are able to be subsidized and able to undermine the free enterprise economy, this could destroy trust in trade.”
The UK has offered to work with the EU, Japan, the US and other countries to combat what it sees as unfair subsidies given to SOEs by China.
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