President Donald Trump appears at the Great Hall of the People in November 2017 in Beijing.
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WASHINGTON — Senior Trump administration officials say they are pushing for new hard-line measures against Beijing, even as President Donald Trump winds down his final two months in office.
The most ambitious effort would create an informal alliance of Western nations to jointly retaliate when China uses its trading power to coerce countries, administration officials say. They say the plan was sparked by Chinese economic pressure on Australia after that country called for an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“China is trying to beat countries into submission by egregious economic coercion,” said one senior official. “The West needs to create a system of absorbing collectively the economic punishment from China’s coercive diplomacy and offset the cost.”
Under the joint retaliation plan, when China boycotts imports, allied nations would agree to purchase the goods or provide compensation. Alternatively, the group could jointly agree to assess tariffs on China for the lost trade.
The administration is also looking to broaden its ban on imports from China’s Xinjiang region that are made with forced labor, and add companies to a Commerce Department blacklist, including Chinese chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. SMIC already faces tough licensing requirements when buying from U.S. firms.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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