Trump isn’t going to stand for China's theft of US intellectual property any longer: Wilbur Ross
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Tuesday that the trade dispute between the United States and China faces its biggest challenge, securing that Beijing ensuring from stealing America’s intellectual property and technology.
“The whole thing about forced technology transfers, theft of intellectual property rights, cyber security breaches, the whole nine yards on stealing our technology,” Ross told FOX Business’ Lou Dobbs. “That’s our future [and] that’s why our president isn’t going to stand for it any longer.”
In an effort to curtail intellectual property theft, President Trump slapped a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods. The administration also used Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 in order to impose the tariffs, giving the Pentagon a larger role to investigate whether imports coming into the U.S. threatens the nation’s security.
The two world's largest economies negotiated a 90-day trade peace agreement during a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump, which took place on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.
Trump has blamed China for the massive trade imbalance between the two countries. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. goods trade deficit with China reached $375.6 billion in 2017.
Ross said the trade deficit is made up of two elements, a geographic component called China and an automotive product line.
“If we don’t solve those two, we’re not going to solve the trade deficit,” he said. “And that’s why, for example, we put in the 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum.”