Criticising the Donald Trump administration over his trade policy with regards to China, US Vice President Kamala Harris said that the former US President invited trade wars and sold American chips to China to help them improve and modernise the military.
During the presidential debate conducted by ABC News, Harris said that the US’ policy with regards to China should be to win the competition for the 21st century, which she stressed means focussing on relationships with allies of the US, focusing on investing in American-based technology.
In response to a question on whether Americans can afford higher prices on tariffs, Kamala Harris said, “The Trump administration resulted in a trade deficit, one of the highest we have ever seen in the history of America. He invited trade wars. You want to talk about his deal with China, what he ended up doing under Donald Trump’s presidency. He ended up selling American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military.”
“Basically, sold us out when a policy about China should be in making sure the United States of America wins the competition for the 21st century, which means focusing on the details of what that requires, focusing on relationships with our allies, focusing on investing in American-based technology so that we win the race on AI, on quantum computing, focusing on what we need to do support America’s workforce so that we don’t end up having on the short end of the stick in terms of workers rights,” she added.
Slamming former US President, Harris said that Trump thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping despite knowing that Xi was responsible for lacking and not giving transparency regarding the origins of COVID.
“But, what Donald Trump did, let’s talk about this with COVID. He actually thanked President Xi for what he did with COVID. Look at his tweet, Thank you Mr Xi! When we know Xi was responsible for lacking and not giving us transparency about the origins of COVID,” Harris said.
During the presidential debate on the same question, Donald Trump said that people in the US need not to pay higher prices. However, it is China and other nations that would pay higher prices. He also said that Biden administration has continued to charge the tariffs he had placed during his government.
Trump said that there was the highest inflation during the Biden administration and termed it the “worst period of time.”
Trump said, “They’re not going to have higher prices. What’s going to happen and who’s going to have higher prices in China and all of the countries that have been ripping us off for years? I charge, I was the only president ever, China was paying us hundreds of billions of dollars and so were other countries.”
“And, you know, if she doesn’t like them, they should have gone out and they should have immediately cut the tariffs. But those tariffs are there three and a half years now under their administration, we are going to take in billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars. I had no inflation, virtually no inflation. They had the highest inflation perhaps in the history of our country because I have not seen the worst period of time. People can’t go out buy cereal, beacon, egg or anything else. The people of our country are dying with what they have done,” he added.