Florida Gov Ron DeSantis threatens to revoke trade ties with China if elected US President

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running for the US presidential race in 2024, on July 9 threatened to cut off all trade ties with China if he is elected. Republican presidential candidate, who trails ex-President Donald Trump, has said that he plans to revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations status if he is elected the President of the United States next year. DeSantis has threatened to escalate the trade feud with Beijing that was started by the Republican leader Trump. He labelled  China “the No 1 geopolitical threat this country faces”.  Trump, who is locked in a race with DeSantis also bashed China, saying that he will give it only 48 hours to get out of the spy facility in Cuba, 90 miles (145km) off the US coast.

"I favour doing that," DeSantis said about revoking the normal trade status with China. "I think we probably need Congress but I would take executive action as appropriate to be able to move us in that direction," he added, while speaking in an interview.

US granted Beijing trade status in 2000 for WTO membership

The US Senate had voted in 2000 to grant Beijing the trade status as it had embarked on being a permanent member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). US trade status is a legal designation that allows free American trade with a foreign country. Trade relations between US and China have worsened in recent years over the island country Taiwan, which Beijing considers as its own inalienable territory. The US instated the export ban on advanced Chinese technologies over the human rights abuses in Xinjiang against the minority Uyghur population. 

The Biden administration, last year, blocked the exports of advanced computer chips to China that deteriorated the trade ties between the two even more. Washington think tank CSIS labelled White House’s ban on the Chinese tech sector as “strangling with an intent to kill.”

The two geopolitical rivals, however, have also been working to restore ties. After concluding her visit to Beijing last week, US treasury secretary Janet Yellen stated that talks with Chinese officials were “direct” and “productive”, adding that US and China are both looking towards stabilising their trade relationship.