US election 2020: Joe Biden faces pressure to separate China trade policy from Donald Trump’s
- Americans feel more negative about China than ever before, yet healthy trade ties with the world’s No 2 economy remain surprisingly popular among US voters
- Biden faces challenge in differentiating his China trade policy from Trump’s, with ex-White House aides expecting tactical changes rather than an overhaul
As voters in the United States prepare for the presidential election on November 3, the South China Morning Post is exploring the potential ramifications for China. The second part of the series looks at how the potential China trade policy of Joe Biden would differ from that of Donald Trump. You can read the first part of the series here.
Biden “would re-evaluate the tariffs upon taking office”, the aide insisted, and had not in fact committed to removing them. But the scramble to counter the suggestion that he might be weak on China – or weak on trade – shows the challenges Biden faces in running against an antitrade, anti-China incumbent.
“Oftentimes candidates will be critical of trade, that is a very common tactic on the campaign trail. President [Barack] Obama, for example, when he was on the campaign trail in 2008, was critical of the way the United States had done trade deals,” said Elizabeth Baltzan, principal at American Phoenix Trade Advisory Services and a US trade official under Obama and President George W. Bush. “But we’re now seeing a very unusual situation in that it is the sitting president who is so critical of trade.”
This tightrope Biden must walk appears even more fraught when looking at how Americans think about both issues in 2020.
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Pew research from July shows that a record 73 per cent of Americans now hold an unfavourable view on China, yet 51 per cent want to broker a strong economic relationship with America’s greatest modern-day rival.
