By Martin Cole-
The U.S will not sign a trade deal with anyone including the Uk until the it has sorted out its competitiveness, President elect Biden suggested today.
Britain was on track to closing in on a trade deal with the administration of Donald Trump, a fierce opponent of the European Union, but Biden told a New York Times interview that his priority will be to improve investment in U.S manufacturing and the protection of American workers.
“I’m not going to enter any new trade agreement with anybody until we have made major investments here at home and in our workers and in education,” he said.
Abusive Practices
Biden has also promised to pursue policies targeting China’s “abusive practices,” such as “stealing intellectual property, dumping products, illegal subsidies to corporations” and forcing “tech transfers” from U.S. companies to Chinese counterparts.
Biden emphasised the need to develop a bipartisan consensus at home and focus government efforts on investments in research and development, infrastructure and education that would allow companies to compete better with Chinese rivals.
A U.S trade deal had been seen as one of the early benefits of leaving the EU and its customs union, but those hopes are now being reviewed.
Biden told the New York Times: “I want to make sure we’re going to fight like hell by investing in America first.” He named energy, biotech, advanced materials and artificial intelligence as areas ripe for large-scale government investment in research.
The remarks underline the extent to which leading Democrats have retreated from a wholesale embrace of globalisation, and insist US foreign policy must give greater priority to America’s domestic interests.
The U.K Foreign Office and trade departments still have a number of trade deals in the offing, and may look for a trade deal with Asia-Pacific nations as a way of filling the vacuum likely to be created by Biden’s priorities. The UK cannot formally engage with the new administration until his inauguration in January, but it has been making contacts with senior Democrat senators.
Biden also suggested the best route to gaining leverage over trade with China is in building alliances to compete with it. Biden said his “goal would be to pursue trade policies that actually produce progress on China’s abusive practices – that’s stealing intellectual property, dumping products, illegal subsidies to corporations” and forcing “tech transfers” from US companies to their Chinese counterparts.
The president elect said leverage could be built by building a domestic consensus in favour of domestic investment, including in U.S semiconductors.
He ruled out lifting any tariffs on China at the stage, but instead conducting a review. “The best China strategy, I think, is one which gets every one of our – or at least what used to be our – allies on the same page. It’s going to be a major priority for me in the opening weeks of my presidency to try to get us back on the same page with our allies.”
Iran Nuclear Deal
Standing out among his claims was his commitment to trying to bring the U.S and Iran back into compliance with the existing nuclear deal signed in 2015 before trying to negotiate an update or expansion of the deal.
Donald Trump took the U.S out of the deal in 2018, imposing heavy economic sanctions. Iran has responded by loosening its commitments under the deal on stockpiles of enriched uranium, but has allowed UN inspections of its nuclear sites to continue.
Many want to see U.S sanctions against Iran stay in place until it has committed to a wider deal that includes its missile programme, regional behaviour and updates some of the commitments in the existing deal.
Biden said: “Look, there’s a lot of talk about precision missiles and all range of other things that are destabilising the region”. He added that the best way to achieve stability in the region was to deal “with the nuclear programme”.
If Iran got a nuclear bomb, he added, it put enormous pressure on the Saudis, Turkey, Egypt and others to get nuclear weapons themselves. “And the last goddamn thing we need in that part of the world is a build up of nuclear capability” .
He added, “in consultation with our allies and partners, we’re going to engage in negotiations and follow-on agreements to tighten and lengthen Iran’s nuclear constraints, as well as address the missile programme”.