Washington wants to limit china's commercial exchanges, says Ross

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States could be increasingly uncompromising with its trading partners, as it has done with Canada and Mexico for the new Alena, to heighten pressure on China. said Friday the US Secretary of Commerce in an interview with Reuters.

A provision of the new United States-Mexico-Canada Tripartite Trade Agreement (USMCA, USMCA), which is to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), aims to prevent any free trade agreement with countries that do not have the status of market economy, which particularly targets China according to analysts.

According to this clause, if one of the AEUMC parties negotiates a trade agreement with a non-market economy country, the other parties can break away from the EUMTA within six months and conclude their own bilateral agreement.

"It's a sort of poison pill", with the aim of "filling the gaps" that allowed China to legitimize its business practices, said Wilbur Ross, adding that such a provision could be extended to future agreements United States.

"We are going to see, it is certainly beneficial that Mexico and Canada have signed (...) People can come to the conclusion that this is one of the preconditions for the conclusion of an agreement," he said. -he adds.

If Washington came up with an identical clause in its trade talks with the European Union and Japan, it could then isolate more Beijing, in accordance with the wishes of President Donald Trump who wants to end the freedom prevailing in trade in the world .

Wilbur Ross said he does not expect a breakthrough in Sino-US trade talks ahead of mid-term elections in the US scheduled for a month.

According to him, the Chinese representatives do not seem in the mood to negotiate right now.

Referring to a strategy lent to several Chinese representatives, he also said that Beijing was mistaken in imagining that Donald Trump would come out weakened from the congressional elections on November 6th.

Last month, before the UN Security Council, Donald Trump accused China of trying to interfere in the mid-term election process to undermine the US administration.

His vice president Mike Pence was on Thursday very virulent with China, saying that Beijing was conducting a sophisticated influence campaign against the Republican Party in retaliation for Trump's trade policy.

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