Leading US experts on China have endorsed Donald Trump’s tough approach towards trade with Beijing, contending that an unbalanced economic relationship requires a change in Washington’s policy.
The call by a task force of academics and former US officials comes amid fears that the new president could set off a destructive trade war between the world’s two largest economies. But in a report the experts argue that an increasingly protectionist and mercantilist China has left the US no other option but to get tough after the failure of diplomacy and more moderate trade actions .
“The relationship in many realms is grievously out of balance and nowhere is this more evident than in trade and investment,” said Orville Schell, a China expert at the Asia Society and one of the report’s authors. “We have to arch our backs and say: ‘This has to be mutually advantageous and equitable or there are going to be consequences’.”