Dan DiMicco, Chairman of CPA: “The Trump administration framework deal with China, as reported this weekend, is on the wrong track. China has agreed to buy commodities that it would buy anyway. The deal does nothing to reduce the US trade deficit, grow American jobs, or boost domestic manufacturing. The Section 301 tariffs are designed to address China’s technology theft and their plans to dominate advanced and high technology manufacturing. An agreement to sell agricultural and energy commodities is the result of bad negotiating and bad economic strategy. In addition, the concept of allowing 50/50 joint ventures when a Chinese company can buy 100 percent of a US company makes no sense. The fact that it’ll be good for our financial industry is not meant to be dealt with in the 301, which is specifically a technology theft issue rather than a financial industry issue. This is not a deal that we are yet comfortable with or can be proud of.”
Michael Stumo, CEO of CPA: “The administration promised to fix the China problem. The framework deal reported this weekend only makes it worse. America is becoming a natural resource and tourism exporter to China, putting us in the economic position of a third world colony. China’s predatory capitalism is designed to displace America as the world’s largest and most advanced economic power. The deal announced by Secretary Mnuchin enables, rather than neutralizes, China’s state capitalism strategy. The focus for future negotiations must be to deny the benefits of forced technology transfer and state-planned capitalism that unfairly displace American value-added and advanced manufacturing supply chains.”
