The administration is positioning itself to clamp down on Chinese investment and access to technology. But the wild card may be the president himself.
President Trump’s tough talk on China typically centers on tariffs. But a closer look at the decisions he has made since taking office shows that the president is considering a far wider set of economic restrictions on Beijing, ones that could hasten America’s split from a critical trading partner.
The Trump administration has so far proposed expanding restrictions on investments flowing between the United States and China. It has appointed officials who, because of national security concerns, are likely to push for more curbs on Chinese investments and technology sales to China. And Mr. Trump has ushered in a 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports, a move that he called an “opening salvo.”
After years in which officials from both parties gradually pared back America’s economic relationship with China, Mr. Trump’s moves suggest that he is prepared to sever ties more aggressively.
Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, said the investment memorandum that the administration issued on Friday read like “a call to finish the unfinished task of fully unwinding commercial ties with China.”
“So far, pragmatists have prevailed in getting a more narrow version of decoupling,” Ms. Sacks said.
The pronouncements could be “a bargaining tool” for Mr. Trump to kick off negotiations with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, Ms. Sacks said. “But should that fall apart or not work out — which is probably most likely — I see this as the blueprint to finish the job of decoupling.”