US Should Increase Pressure on China for Unfair Trade Practices, Biden Nominees Say

The U.S. should increase efforts to counter China’s unfair trading practices and human rights violations and work closer with allies on trade restrictions, two of President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees told Congress. Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary nominee, and Avril Haines, the nominee for the director of national intelligence, both said the incoming administration will continue to pressure China on unfair subsidies, intellectual property theft and other trade issues.

“China is clearly our most important strategic competitor,” Yellen told the Senate Finance Committee Jan. 19 during her confirmation hearing. She said the U.S. needs to “take on Chinese abusive, unfair and illegal practices,” including illegal dumping, trade barriers, subsidies and forced technology transfers, which is giving China an “unfair technological advantage.”

The Biden administration must be tougher on China than the Obama administration, said Haines, who served as a deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama. She said the U.S. needs to formulate a “long-term, bipartisan effort to out-compete China” while also countering Beijing’s “unfair, illegal, aggressive and coercive actions.”

“China is a challenge to our security, to our prosperity, to our values across a range of issues, and I do support an aggressive stance to deal with the challenge that we're facing,” Haines told the Senate Intelligence Committee during her confirmation hearing. “I think that's the place that we are in now, and it’s one that is more assertive than where we had been in the Obama-Biden administration.”

Treasury will continue to use sanctions and other restrictions to hold China accountable, Yellen said, and plans to conduct a review of the agency’s sanctions policy if she is confirmed (see 2012090016). “These practices, including China's global labor and environmental standards, are practices that we’re prepared to use the full array of tools to address,” she said. “Sanctions are a critically important tool to address cybersecurity and other threats, and you can be sure that I will be focused on making sure that they're used strategically and appropriately.”

While Treasury will continue to pursue unilateral restrictions, Yellen also said the agency will place an emphasis on multilateral cooperation to counter China. “I believe we should try to address unfair trade practices,” she said, “and the best way to do that is to work with our allies rather than unilaterally.”

Haines also said Biden will work more closely with allies against Iran and will try to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which would remove certain U.S. sanctions against Iran. But the administration will only rejoin the deal if Iran were to come back into compliance with the agreement, Haines said. Iran has continued to breach the terms of the JCPOA (see 2101120022) after the Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018. “Frankly,” she said, “we're a long ways from that.”

Antony Blinken, Biden’s nominee for secretary of the State Department, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the U.S. will work with allies to “seek a longer and stronger agreement” with Iran. But he also said “we’re a long way from there.”