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US-China trade war
ChinaDiplomacy

US lawmakers mull State Department shake-up as trade partners seek new alliances

Witnesses warn subcommittee hearing that previously ‘impossible’ economic partnerships are moving ahead after tariff confusion

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A Washington subcommittee is considering structural reform of the US State Department to align with President Donald Trump’s economic and foreign policies. Photo: AFP
Robert Delaneyin Washington

Major economies are beginning to work around the United States as Washington breaks away from the global trading rules that it established, witnesses told lawmakers on Wednesday, in a hearing called to assess how to restructure the US government to align economic and foreign policy goals.

Witnesses and lawmakers in the hearing organised by the House East Asia and Pacific subcommittee – chaired by Young Kim, a California Republican – generally agreed that a policy of closer economic engagement with trading partners was necessary, particularly to counter China’s growing influence, but needed closer coordination between numerous US government agencies.
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Kim said her committee aimed to craft legislation to address concerns expressed by US President Donald Trump and some of his predecessors that “economic security, economic policy is foreign policy”.

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She argued that “the current alignment of functions and agencies charged with leading our economic statecraft effort is in need of structural reform”.

Against the backdrop of Trump’s bewildering series of tariff impositions, rescissions, and threats, witnesses including Wendy Cutler – a former US trade negotiator and now vice-president at the Asia Society Policy Institute – warned that economic partnerships that would have been “impossible just years ago” are moving ahead.
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Cutler cited a landmark free-trade pact between India and Britain, clinched last week, and the European Union’s interest in joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which China aims to join.
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