GOP presidential hopeful DeSantis calls for end to China's preferential trade status

Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the U.S. should revoke China’s preferential trade status, saying efforts to include the nation in global trade frameworks have been a failure.

DeSantis said in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that he supports appropriate executive action and legislation by Congress to end China’s "most favored nation" trade status, which reduces tariffs on imported goods from the communist country. Hopes had been the efforts would help liberalize China.

Calls for an end to China’s preferential trade status have increased in recent years as the country’s economy has grown to become the world’s second largest, accounting for about 18% of global gross domestic product.

"I think we need to recognize this experiment with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) over the last three decades, where they were granted most favored nation status, put in the World Trade Organization, that’s been a failure," DeSantis said. "We need independence from China. We cannot subcontract out key aspects of our industrial base to a country that doesn’t have our interest at heart and that is our No. 1 geopolitical threat."

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Bartiromo asked DeSantis whether he supports revoking China’s most favored nation status. The governor responded, "I favor doing that. I think we probably need Congress, but I would take executive action as appropriate to be able to move us in that direction."

DeSantis went on to say that if elected president, his administration would "recognize that China is a threat" – a stance he says is in contrast to the Biden administration, which has dispatched Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for high-profile meetings with Chinese officials aimed at easing tensions.

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"This idea of the happy talk that you hear from Yellen, ‘Oh, we’re just – it’s a healthy competition.’ No, they’re the No. 1 geopolitical threat this country faces, and what we’re going to do is, we’re going to have a new commitment to hard power in the Indo-Pacific," DeSantis said.

"At the end of the day, what China respects is strength. And if you’re showing strength, and we have hard power to back it up, they’re going to be much less aggressive," he added. "And my fear is, under Biden, his weakness is really inviting China to do more, not just in their own theater. We see them doing more in our own hemisphere here in the West."

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Earlier this year, the U.S. unanimously approved legislation that would make it U.S. policy to oppose China’s continued classification as a "developing country" in international organizations. Among those organizations is the WTO, which gives China access to development assistance loans on preferential terms along with access to "special and differential treatment" intended to boost its trading opportunities.

The bill, known as the PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act, which was introduced by Reps. Young Kim, R-Calif., and Gerry Connolly, D-Va., passed the House on a 415-0 vote in March 2023. It would require the State Department to develop a mechanism for challenging China’s trade status if an international body doesn’t currently have such a mechanism.

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Although the bill hasn’t yet been considered in the Senate, similar legislation has been proposed in the upper chamber.

Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., introduced the Ending China’s Developing Nation Status Act, while Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the Ending Normal Trade Relations With China Act.