When President Trump meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 gathering in Argentina, what should be the president’s bottom-line condition for ending tariffs? In an op-ed for the Washington Post, ITIF President Rob Atkinson outlines the real measures necessary to roll back China’s innovation-stifling, mercantilist agenda.
The United States needs to go back to the idea President Ronald Reagan embraced in countering Japan during the 1980s — a “results-oriented” approach to trade. In other words, the U.S. government should identify concrete policy changes it needs China to make, and then roll back U.S. “countermeasures” only when China takes verifiable actions. These concrete changes should include a dramatic reduction in cybertheft, an end to forced transfer of U.S. technology, a slash in subsidies, and open market access.
