Don warns US can decouple from China

Washington, June 19: US President Donald Tru-mp warned on Thursday the United States had the option to separate from China’s deeply intertwined economy, despite the powers’ pledges to move forward on a trade deal.

Tensions have been mounting between Beijing and Washington on a number of fronts including trade, although the two sides signed a “phase one” deal earlier this year to bring a truce to a bruising trade war.

The US “certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China. Thank you!” Trump tweeted.

The US President wrote that he was responding to comments by his trade representative Robert Lighthizer, who has been at the forefront of trade negotiations with Beijing.

Lighthizer told a congressional committee this week that China so far has been living up to the terms of a “phase one” agreement that eased the dispute, but that decoupling the two economic giants was now impossible.

“That was a policy option years ago, but I don't think it's a policy or reasonable policy option at this point,” Lighthizer said. Lighthizer described himself as a hardliner on China policy, and outlined the Trump administration’s plans to “reset” the World Trade Organisation, largely so that it can better rein in Beijing's policies, which he says run afoul of free trade rules.

But his admission that the world's two largest economies are inextricably linked — despite Trump's aggressive campaign to push American firms to relocate production to the United States — caused some angst in Republican circles.

On Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a regular press briefing that “trying to artificially cut global industrial and supply chains, and using political power to change the laws of the economy, is neither realistic nor wise”.

Donald Trump