When Robert Lighthizer, America’s top trade official, took a recent chance to engage with Donald Trump’s conservative base, the issue that animated him most wasn’t the deal clinched just days before to revamp North America’s trade rules. It was China.
Giving a rare interview to Laura Ingraham, a rightwing talk radio host in October, the US trade representative said the country was the “elephant in the room” that was “stealing our technology”. The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on more than $200bn of Chinese imports the previous month were already producing “strong” results.
“If we can’t protect our innovation, we lose our edge,” the steely 71-year old Ohio native told listeners in his guttural voice.
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