US trade negotiator calls China "unprecedented" threat

China’s economic model represents an “unprecedented” threat to the world trading system that can’t be addressed under current global rules, Trump’s top trade negotiator, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, said. “There is one challenge on the current scene that is substantially more difficult than those faced in the past, and that is China,” Lighthizer said on Monday in Washington. “The sheer scale of their coordinated effort to develop their economy, to subsidize, to create national champions, to force technology transfers and to distort markets in China and throughout the world is a threat to the world trading system that is unprecedented.” The World Trade Organization and the rules that underlie the international trade arbitrator weren’t designed to deal with China’s current approach to its economy, he said. Lighthizer said that he doesn’t want to prejudge the investigation’s outcome, but he gets “an awful lot of complaints,” especially from American chief executives, Bloomberg reports.