Trump pick to negotiate trade harsh China critic
Print Edition
US President-elect Donald Trump yesterday named Robert Lighthizer, an official in the Reagan administration and a harsh critic of China’s trade practices, to be his chief trade negotiator, responsible for “better deals” that are aimed at reducing US trade deficits.
Trump, who promised during his presidential campaign to renegotiate international trade deals like NAFTA and punish companies that ship work overseas, said in announcing his choice that Lighthizer would help “fight for good trade deals that put the American worker first.”
Lighthizer was a deputy US trade representative under Republican President Ronald Reagan who helped to stem the tide of imports from Japan in the 1980s with threats of quotas and tariffs.
His return to the agency follows nearly three decades as a lawyer representing US steelmakers and other companies in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases.
Lighthizer has claimed that China “failed” to live up to commitments made in 2001 when it joined the World Trade Organization and that tougher tactics are needed to change the system, even if it means deviating from WTO rules.
“Years of passivity and drift among US policy-makers have allowed the US-China trade deficit to grow to the point where it is widely recognized as a major threat to our economy,” Lighthizer wrote in 2010 congressional testimony.
US policy-makers should take a much more aggressive approach in dealing with China, he added.
Lighthizer is regarded as an experienced tactician with an intimate knowledge of trade tools widely used before the WTO was created in 1995, including “Section 301” tariffs used to stem a tide of imports of Japanese steel and vehicles in the 1980s.
During his tenure, Reagan struck the 1985 Plaza Accord currency deal with Japan, Germany and other major trading partners that brought down the dollar’s value and encouraged more foreign companies to set up US manufacturing plants.
Trump has also named Peter Navarro, an economist and adviser who has urged a hard line against China, as the head of a newly formed White House National Trade Council.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
