By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican U.S. presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Sunday he would take steps to revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations status if he wins the House race White in 2024.
“I’m supportive of that. I think we probably need Congress, but I would take appropriate executive action to be able to move us in that direction,” DeSantis said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday.
The US Senate voted in 2000 to grant this status to China as it prepared to join the World Trade Organization. Any move to remove it would also require congressional approval. Status is a legal designation in the United States for free trade with a foreign country.
US-China relations have been strained for years over national security issues, including in Taiwan, US export bans on advanced technologies, Chinese state-directed industrial policies, human rights issues , the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and trade tariffs.
Washington has attempted to re-establish ties between the world’s two largest economies. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said over the weekend that her meetings with senior Chinese officials in recent days had been “direct” and “productive”, helping to stabilize the often difficult relations between the superpowers at the end of her term. four-day trip to Beijing.
China is “the No. 1 geopolitical threat facing this country,” DeSantis added in the interview.
Former President Donald Trump, who currently leads the Republican field in the polls with DeSantis far behind, said he would give China 48 hours to emerge from what sources familiar with the matter say is a nuclear facility. Chinese espionage on the island. of Cuba 90 miles (145 km) off the coast of the United States.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh; Editing by Scott Malone and Andrea Ricci)