Andrew Blasi Jr. is an established presence in the Washington, DC foreign affairs community who consults as part of Crowell and Moring International. A thought leader on international trade, Andrew Blasi Jr. recently appeared with Siraj Hashmi on the Washington Examiner podcast “Hashing it Out” and discussed US-China trade in depth.
As Mr. Blasi describes it, the US-China trade situation is part of a larger global landscape in which people are becoming increasingly mistrustful of institutions and globalization. He also notes that some do not realize the Trump Administration has a comprehensive approach on trade. For the Trump Administration, actions as diverse as the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, speedy renegotiation of the Korea Free Trade Agreement, progress on the Japan Trade Agreement, and a pending Canada and Mexico trade agreement are all connected.
Mr. Blasi notes that the full range of strategic issues on the table between the Trump Administration and China today involve friction that stems back to the granting of “permanent normal trade relations” (PNTR). While this inclusionary stance achieved many sought-after goals for both the US and China, they did address certain challenges in the relationship that have continued until today and at a much larger scale as China’s economy and technological capabilities have grown.
