You can’t contain China: former US trade chief Robert Zoellick warns Donald Trump
- Former World Bank president said he ‘doesn’t agree with Trump’s approach to trade’
- Would not comment on speculation that Trump’s daughter Ivanka was set to take the reins at the organisation
Donald Trump’s mission to decouple the United States and Chinese economies is doomed to fail, with former US trade chief and World Bank president Robert Zoellick warning: “You can’t contain China.”
Fear of China’s potential dominance of future technologies is one of the primary drivers of the trade war, which is widely viewed as an attempt at countering this rise.
The trade war is also seen as a way of forcing US companies to shift their supply chains out of China, thereby decreasing the integration of the two economic superpowers.
“[Current US Trade Representative] Ambassador Lighthizer’s comments in the past have tried to suggest that you can decouple the US and Chinese economies. I think that would be very difficult,” Zoellick told reporters on the sidelines of the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong today.
“You can’t contain China,” he added.
