Biden picks commerce secretary
‘Postive sign to repair two countries’ trade ties’
US President-elect Joe Biden has nominated Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo as his Commerce Secretary – a key agency at the forefront of handling policies with China, ranging from managing trade policy to formulating tech strategy.
Observers expect Raimondo, given her past moderate rhetoric about China, to ease trade tensions with Beijing caused by President Donald Trump and play an “active and predictable” role in facilitating China-US trade and economic dialogue.
But analysts stressed that trade relations will remain fraught and there won’t be a big shift in Washington’s overall strategy to curb Beijing’s rise between Trump’s policies and that of the incoming Biden administration, especially with the tech crackdown-though the means of achieving the goal may differ.
So far, most of Biden’s key economic team members have been announced, except for the US Trade Representative (USTR), which holds the most weight in China-US economic cooperation. Analysts said choosing a USTR is a daunting task for Biden as the stakes are very high, involving not only US relations with China but also with its close allies, such as Japan, Europe and Canada.
Biden finalized his cabinet on Thursday night, according to media reports. Raimondo has served as the governor of Rhode Island since 2015, and was the general treasurer of the state before that.
Chinese observers said they are “a little surprised” at Biden’s pick, who is from a little-known US state in the international arena and has limited dealings with China.
“But this is in line with Biden’s picks of officials with multilateral views. US governors are more willing to promote China-US trade and economic dialogue than federal officials, as they are accountable to local voters. If such logic is inherited, it would be a positive sign for the world’s two largest economies to repair sinking trade ties,” said Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing who closely follows China-US trade tensions.
If approved by the Senate, Raimondo will head a department that is now led by Wilbur Ross, who, during his tenure, along with USTR Robert Lighthizer, aided Trump in launching a trade war with China.
More importantly, Ross also maliciously cracked down on China’s tech rise. Through the Bureau of Industry and Security, he blacklisted various Chinese tech firms, including Huawei and ZTE, for a claimed national security threat, barring US suppliers from shipping components to them.