Trade Envoy Tai Says US Not Seeking to ‘Decouple’ From China

TOKYO—Washington is not seeking to decouple the American economy from China’s, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said Thursday while on a visit to Tokyo.

Tai, who is on her fourth visit to Japan after being appointed the top U.S. trade envoy, said all members of President Joe Biden’s administration have been “very clear that it is not the intention to decouple” China’s economy.

U.S. trade sanctions against China are “narrowly targeted,” she said.

Given its huge size and importance, unraveling the ties with China that keep the world economy running is “not a goal or achievable,” Tai said in a news conference at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan.

Tai said that regular trade work between the United States and China was continuing and she was “completely open to engaging with my counterparts in Beijing,” though she has no immediate plans to visit China.

At the same time, the United States is seeking to strengthen and expand economic security cooperation with its Asian allies and partners in response to the Chinese regime’s growing aggressiveness and its dominance in many manufacturing industries.

Security and stability of supply chains is an issue that has gained urgency after disruptions caused by the pandemic and controls imposed to try to fight outbreaks of COVID-19 resulted in shortages of computer chips and other goods.

A recent agreement on trade in critical minerals will allow electric vehicles using metals sourced or processed in Japan to qualify for tax breaks under the Inflation Reduction Act. That deal is one evidence of the U.S. commitment to “building collective resilience and security,” Tai said.

“We have all experienced the fragility of our dispersed supply chains in recent years, especially through the pandemic and Russia’s brutal, unjustified attack on Ukraine. And we’ve become too reliant, we have discovered, on certain countries for the supply of critical minerals needed to fuel our clean energy future,” Tai said.

The Biden administration has been adopting a new approach to global trade, arguing that America’s traditional reliance on promoting free trade pacts failed to anticipate the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) brand of capitalism and the possibility that a major power like Russia would go to war against one of its trading partners.

Tai recently gave a speech at American University, where she spoke of “friend-shoring’’—building up supply chains among allied countries and reducing dependence on geopolitical rivals such as China.

Tai pointed to a new trade partnership with Japan that she said has brought “tangible results for our workers, small businesses, and producers on both sides of the Pacific.” That includes an agreement to lift limits on U.S. exports of beef to Japan and a new biofuels policy to facilitate exports of more ethanol to Japan,