Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has threatened to escalate the US trade war with China if elected president in 2024.
The Florida governor told a TV news interviewer on Sunday that he would revoke the normal trade status between Washington and Beijing — although he was unclear on how to achieve that.
"I favor doing that," DeSantis said. "I think we probably need Congress but I would take executive action as appropriate to be able to move us in that direction."
The US Senate voted in 2000 to normalise trade relations with China as the Asian giant applied for membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) — the US-led initiative to replace the previous General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) treaty agreed in 1947.
Despite promising a fresh start in foreign relations when he entered the White House in 2021, Democratic President Joe Biden's administration has only deepened the trade war with Beijing started by his predecessor Donald Trump, banning the export of microchip technologies to mainland China while tacitly supporting breakaway island Taiwan's claim to independence.
Biden undid limited diplomatic progress made on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's recent visit to Beijing by calling Chinese President Xi Jinping a "dictator".A follow-up trip by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was marred by more accusations against Bejing.
DeSantis is currently running a distant second in an increasingly long field behind Trump in polling for the 2024 Republican primary race.
He and and other potential candidates may be banking on the chances of Trump's conviction in one of two ongoing criminal prosecutions — plus a possible third in the state of Georgia — which could disqualify him from seeking a second term of office.