US Should Join CPTPP, Engage More With Allies to Counter China, Foreign Officials Say

The Joe Biden administration is expected to cooperate more with allies to counter China and more closely coordinate on trade deals and restrictions, officials from the European Union and Australia said. While the EU wants to work with the new administration to take a more multilateral approach toward strategic competition with China, Australia plans to lobby Biden trade officials to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“I think the one thing that the China phase one deal doesn't deliver is access to supply chains in the Indo-Pacific,” Andrew Jory, the trade minister at the Australian embassy in Washington, said during a Jan. 12 webinar hosted by the Global Business Dialogue. “For Australia, asking the U.S. to join the CPTPP is a priority.”

Jory said Australia wants more trade allies in the region, which would help the country counter unfair Chinese trading practices. He said Australia is “very concerned” about recent trade measures taken by China to target Australian barley, beef and wine (see 2005180016, 2005130013 and 2012100016), and hopes to resolve them at the World Trade Organization. Jory also said Australia is optimistic the Biden administration can help find a “pathway” to fix the WTO's non-functioning Appellate Body (see 2012110032).

“For Australia, it's very important that we have a rules-based framework for resolving trade disputes,” Jory said. “We would encourage the Biden administration to look at that issue, and they'll find a willing partner ready to take up some of the concerns that they had expressed.”

Tomas Baert, the head of trade and agriculture with the EU’s delegation to the U.S., also said he hopes for more U.S. trade engagement with allies under the incoming Biden administration. He said the EU wants to work with the U.S. and Japan on a “multi-pronged approach” to address competition with China, which he said the EU views as a “systemic rival.”

Baert said the EU needs more “autonomous measures” to place restrictions on China, adding that the EU plans to “expand our toolbox.” He also said the EU’s recent investment agreement with China will not impact the EU’s ability to restrict certain Chinese transactions. “We are screening investment in Europe right now and nothing in the investment agreement will stop us from doing that,” Baert said.

Nick Giordano, vice president-government affairs for the National Pork Producers Council, said joining with the EU is “perhaps the most important alliance the United States can form in trying to take on China.” He also said pork exporters would welcome the U.S. joining the CPTPP. But he also said the U.S should focus on decreasing tensions with China to reduce retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural products, which at one point included tariffs as high as 70% on U.S. pork.

“China is viewed going forward as an extremely important, long-term market for U.S. pork,” Giordano said during the webinar. “It is in our obvious interest, and that of the United States and China, to eliminate retaliatory import duties and find a way to effectively address the many bilateral trade issues confronting the two countries.”