Trump eyes 'decoupling' from China

Trump vows to turn America into "the manufacturing superpower of the world" and "end our reliance on China"

President Trump is considering decoupling the United States' and China's economies.

"When you mention the word decouple, it’s an interesting word,” Trump said during a Labor Day news conference at the White House. “We lose billions of dollars and if we didn’t do business with them we wouldn’t lose billions of dollars. It’s called decoupling, so you’ll start thinking about it.”

The president also threatened to block companies who choose to outsource jobs to China from receiving federal contracts, and vowed to bring manufacturing jobs and supply chains back to the United States if re-elected in November.

“We will make America into the manufacturing superpower of the world and will end our reliance on China once and for all,” he added. “Whether it’s decoupling, or putting in massive tariffs like I’ve been doing already, we will end our reliance on China, because we can’t rely on China.”

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Trump previously floated decoupling from China during an interview with Fox News' Steve Hilton, in which he also claimed that Beijing could intefere in the November election on behalf of Democratic nominee and former vice president Joe Biden.

"China owns Joe Biden. His son got a billion and a half dollars. His son with no experience, no brainpower, no anything, never did it, not only Ukraine, he got hundreds of thousands of dollars of money from Ukraine and the upfront payment and then with China he walks up with a billion and half dollars in fees. It's ridiculous," Trump said. "They own Joe Biden. They own him and they want me to it lose so badly."

The decoupling comments come as China has been in the Trump administration's crosshairs on multiple fronts, from trade to intellectual property theft to the country's handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

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In addition, the president touted his administration's efforts to rebuild the U.S. economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, saying the country is in the midst of a “V-shaped recovery” after adding 1.4 million new jobs in the month of August.

"We're in the midst of the fastest economic recovery in U.S. history, so we have a lot to be thankful for," Trump said Monday. "The United States experienced the smallest contraction of any western nation...You look around and see how we're doing compared to any other nation, our rise is spectacular, and we're rebounding much more quickly from the pandemic."

The coronavirus has infected more than 6.3 million Americans and killed more than 189,000 Americans, according to the latest update from Johns Hopkins University.

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