USCBC Beijing 2025 China Operations Conference & Reception
Fair Treatment in China, Maintaining PNTR, and Boosting US Competitiveness Among Top Industry Priorities for US-China Commercial Relations
WASHINGTON—February 6, 2025—The US-China Business Council (USCBC), a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization of 270 American companies that do business in China, today announced its priorities for US-China commercial relations.
New government leadership in the United States presents an opportunity to reevaluate and achieve strategic priorities for the US-China commercial relationship. USCBC supports efforts to hold China accountable for making long overdue changes to its economic, investment, and trade policies that disadvantage American companies, farmers, and workers.
Key priorities include:
- Promoting fair treatment of US companies, farmers, and workers through comprehensive bilateral negotiations to sell more US goods and services to the China market
- Ensuring that negotiations balance near-term deliverables, including China’s “phase one” commitments, with long promised structural policy changes
- Not changing China’s permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status, which would cause higher US costs and job losses while doing nothing to promote US national security or competitiveness
- Strategically reducing existing tariffs and limiting new tariffs to target US national security goals and unfair Chinese economic practices and expanding tariff exclusions to help American workers and consumers and strengthen US competitiveness
- Rescoping national security-related restrictions on business where warranted and better aligning them with like-minded countries to preserve America’s technological leadership and global competitiveness
- Strengthening outcomes-oriented bilateral mechanisms that support commercial deals to sell more US goods and services to the China market
- Promoting people-to-people exchanges
“We are encouraged that the two governments have taken initial steps to pursue negotiations on various issues at the most senior levels, including a call between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping last month. USCBC hopes these discussions will lay the foundation for addressing China’s ‘phase one’ commitments and long-standing policy barriers that disadvantage American companies, farmers, and workers,” USCBC President Sean Stein said. “Right now, we have a unique opportunity to engage the Chinese government on structural issues that prevent US companies from competing on a level playing field in China, which is what Trump envisioned during his first term in office. In addition to engaging the Chinese, it is imperative the United States makes sound trade policy decisions at home to ensure American companies and exporters are competitive in China and globally.”
Established in 1973, USCBC represents many of the world’s most iconic brands operating in China and for more than 50 years has advocated on behalf of its members, while promoting the many benefits of commercial exchange between the United States and China.
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