Take it for what it's worth
The race within the election race is to sound tougher on China. The trade war has been a propaganda exercise in turning public opinion against China and that genie has undoubtedly left the bottle.
So I'm not sure that comments from Antony Blinken, the campaign's senior foreign-policy adviser, are necessarily telling on what will happen but here's what he's saying today:
- Biden would use tariffs in aggressively enforcing US trade laws if elected
- US-China Phase 1 trade deal has been "a debacle", doesn't address systemic issues
- Would work with allies to set technology standards
- Decoupling is unrealistic
- Important to end artificial trade war with Europe and improve relations
- Persistent EU-US imbalance in agricultural trade 'is an objective problem'
