US trade negotiator Jamison Greer believes that the US government will always impose higher tariffs on goods from China than on supplies from other countries.
“I believe that tariffs, on average, will always be higher on everything coming from China“, he told the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on May 26. Greer noted that the US considers China “the source of some of its most serious problems“, in particular related to the alleged “overcapacity“ of China and the US trade deficit.
Greer added that Washington could impose additional tariffs on goods from China “depending on the outcome of various investigations“.
At the same time, Greer stressed that the current Washington administration “for the most part“ has abandoned its efforts to force the Chinese government to change its economic model.
“We have simply resigned ourselves to the fact that there will not be any huge, comprehensive reforms to the way the Chinese political system operates, including all of these economic components,“ he explained. “But we can provide some regulation of trade.“
Speaking of the Washington administration's approach to trade with other countries, Greer also said: “Countries that have huge trade surpluses with the United States will typically be subject to higher tariffs because of the different trade practices that have helped generate those surpluses.“