US Trade Official Declares China an ‘Unprecedented Threat’ to World Trade System

United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Monday that China’s manipulative trade practices and economic model represent an “unprecedented threat’. Paul Huang/The Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—China’s manipulative trade practices and economic model represent an “unprecedented threat” to the world’s market-based economy and U.S. interests, said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, in a speech on Sept. 18.

It was the first major public speech given by Lighthizer, a long-term critic of China’s trade practices against the United States. Lighthizer told a crowd of over a hundred at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that China represents the one challenge facing the administration that is “substantially more difficult than those faced in the past.”