The United States has officially abandoned its 30-year-old China policy, with the Trump administration reversing decades of pressure from successive U.S. governments demanding reform of China's political system. Washington had long pursued various policies in expectation of fundamental changes to Beijing's political structure.
Jamieson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative, said at a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) event on Wednesday that "we have accepted the fact that the way China's political system operates cannot be massively reformed," according to a report by Axios on Friday. The remarks signal how the Trump administration intends to redefine its relationship with China, the world's second-largest economy, under a new trade order.
Greer compared U.S. demands that China move away from its export-driven economic structure to "China asking the United States to dismantle the Republican Party." He added that "some of the things we have been demanding for decades are essentially the foundation of China's political system."
The position marks a clear departure from that of the Biden administration, which had pressed Beijing to pursue reform by arguing that "economic rebalancing" — centered on expanding domestic demand and reducing reliance on exports — would also benefit China itself.
When Michael Froman, CFR president and a former U.S. Trade Representative under the Obama administration, asked whether "the United States has ended that approach," Greer replied, "I think that's fair to say."
Following President Donald Trump's visit to China earlier this month, the USTR plans to launch a public comment process on a list of "non-strategic" Chinese goods eligible for tariff reductions and a list of U.S. products China should purchase in additional volumes.
Meanwhile, the deadline for renewing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which was renegotiated and launched during Trump's first term, is five weeks away. Greer offered a pessimistic outlook on Canada's continued participation in the pact. U.S. officials will travel to Mexico this week to begin the first round of negotiations. Canada has been excluded from the negotiating table.
"Canada took a different approach and retaliated against the United States, like China," Greer said. "Canada is in a different position, and it is hard to see where this will end up."
The shift in U.S. policy toward China is expected to have a mixed impact on Korean exporters. While accelerating U.S.-China decoupling could deliver benefits to Korean companies in semiconductors and batteries, Washington's trade pressure on its allies may also intensify.
