Where Should the Next U.S. President Take the China Relationship?

Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, notes that Trump 2.0 would also have “a lot of interest in things like revoking China’s permanent normal trade relations status under the [World Trade Organization] and trying to expand bans on Chinese investment in the United States.” She also notes that the Phase One deal includes an innovative political process to resolve disputes bilaterally, “without any independent arbiters or any external panels.” It hasn’t really been tested, she says, but it could be.

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Kilcrease, at CNAS, notes that the ‘small yard, high fence’ construction underplays the scope of the changes already implemented. “When you look across the range of things that we’re taking [export control] measures on, it’s not really a very small yard,” she says. There are also “some open questions about whether the fence is working … and how much China has been able to get around it, either through indigenous innovation or smuggling.” The next president, she says, should focus on evaluating whether or not the strategy is working: “There isn’t a dedicated function within the government looking at this and thinking about unintended consequences.”

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