Key details on the agenda and deliverables for President Donald Trump’s trip to China early next month remain unclear as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer prepare to meet with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng in Paris over Sunday and Monday.
On Thursday, it was announced that China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao will meet with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in Washington and with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai in Detroit next week. Many have been expecting Tai and Wentao to meet, as Detroit is hosting the trade ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) May 25 to 26.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held eight hours of talks with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, over Wednesday and Thursday in Vienna in a step toward stabilizing relations. The previously undisclosed talks broke a period of relative silence between the two countries, following the Chinese surveillance balloon incident earlier this year.
In an April 24 speech, Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA), a member of the new House Select Committee on the CCP, outlined his vision for the future of the US-China relationship.
In the first quarter of the year, China’s economy expanded by 4.5 percent, exceeding economists’ growth expectations of around 4 percent. The first quarter performance is a step toward reaching China’s 2023 growth target of 5 percent and is indicative of a return from its COVID-stunted economy.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), accompanied by 12 Democratic committee chairs, announced plans for a Senate legislative package focused on China. Schumer urged his committee chairs to work with their Republican counterparts to draft bipartisan legislation that can be combined into a larger bill modeled after the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which was passed last Congress.
In a speech Thursday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan outlined the Biden administration’s new industrial strategy for the United States. The strategy aims to leverage massive public investment to rebuild US manufacturing, reduce inequality, and reduce supply chain dependence on China.
On March 31, China’s Cybersecurity Review Office announced a cybersecurity review (CSR) investigation into US chipmaker Micron, citing supply chain security and cybersecurity risks. This investigation has spurred questions and concerns about the CSR process and whether it will create new compliance difficulties for US companies moving forward.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) has been a game changer for forced labor import bans. Its broad scope, covering anything made “in whole or in part” with input from Xinjiang or entities blacklisted on the UFLPA entity list, has forced companies to rethink supply chain traceability in China and the region.
