US President Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo, on Tuesday pledged during a US Senate confirmation hearing to be tough on China for “anti-competitive” trade practices.
“Should I be confirmed, I plan to be very aggressive, to help Americans compete against the unfair practices of China,” she told lawmakers.
Raimondo, the first female governor of the US state of Rhode Island, said that China has “clearly behaved in ways that are anti-competitive, dumping cheap steel and aluminum into America, which hurts American workers and hurts the ability of our companies to compete.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
She said she supported Biden’s position that Washington would consult its allies to restore fair trade with Beijing.
Raimondo did not commit to keeping telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co (華為) or other Chinese companies on the US blacklist due to allegations that they pose a risk to US national security.
She said she would consult on the matter and make an assessment based on national security.
“We can’t have the Chinese or really anyone having a back door into our network and compromising in any way our national or economic security,” Raimondo said.
“I will use the bold tool kit at my disposal to the fullest extent possible to protect Americans and our network from Chinese interference or any kind of backdoor influence into our network — and that’s Huawei, ZTE or any other company,” she said, referring to China’s ZTE Corp (中興), another telecommunications equipment firm.
During former US president Donald Trump’s administration, the commerce department cracked down on Chinese tech companies suspected of industrial espionage or of compromising US national security.
Former US secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross broadened the list of companies that cannot trade with US companies without a prior license, which grew to include Chinese telecom giants like Huawei and ZTE.
Last month, just weeks before its departure, the Trump administration added Chinese computer chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際) to the blacklist, limiting the company’s access to high-end US technologies due to its alleged links with the Chinese military.
Raimondo said that the US would “need to invest in innovation and technology in our manufacturing sector.”
Her stated objective of “reshoring” factory jobs to the US is an echo of Trump, though his goal proved elusive.
The number of US manufacturing jobs stood at 12.3 million last month, little changed from four years earlier. Two decades ago, the figure topped 17 million.
Raimondo also said that social media companies need to be held accountable for the content on their platforms, and that she would work with Congress to make changes to Section 230, a liability waiver that the companies depend upon to allow relatively unfettered speech by users.
Trump had demanded that the protections be revoked.
“We need platform accountability, but of course that reform would have to be balanced against the fact that these businesses rely upon user generated content for their innovation and have created many thousands of jobs,” she said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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