President Trump Considering Fining China for Intellectual Property Theft – By OAN Newsroom (oann.com) / Jan 18 2018
President Trump may be taking action against China as it continues to steal intellectual property from U.S. companies.
He could soon impose fines on China due to ongoing theft of intellectual property.
America loses up to $600 billion to intellectual property theft each year, and the vast majority goes to China.
The U.S. has asked for the cooperation of trade partners such as the EU and Japan, who have experience similar issues.
However, they are reluctant to follow suit and prefer to air their grievances through the World Trade Organization.
Last year, the president announced his administration would be opening up an investigation into intellectual property theft.
“We’re going to be fulfilling another campaign promise by taking firm steps to ensure that we protect the intellectual property of American companies, and very importantly, of American workers,” stated the president.
China’s economic policies have been steadily moving away from WTO principles.
Rather than pursuing policies of cooperating with other nations, the Chinese government is striving toward a policy of “mercantilism.”
Their policies, as outlined in the “Made in China 2025” initiative, involve aggressively acquiring technology and trade secrets in order to dominate the world economy.
Some have referred to this as a threat to the world’s current trading system.
This has involved requiring the disclosure of trade secrets and advanced technology as a price of doing business in the Chinese market.
On some occasion the information is simply stolen.
“The theft of intellectual property by foreign countries costs our nation millions of jobs and billions and billions of dollars each and every year,” explained President Trump. “For too long, this wealth has been drained from our country while Washington has done nothing…they have never done anything about it, but Washington will turn a blind eye no longer.”
The president’s words have some worried a trade war could result from sanctions or tariffs.
However, with China’s history of disregarding previous agreements to respect intellectual property the United States faces some difficult choices if it seeks to protect the interests of the American people.
When asked if this could lead to a trade war, President Trump said it was unlikely.
The president is expected to provide more information on his plans during the State of the Union address on January 30th.
http://www.oann.com/pres-trump-considering-fining-china-for-intellectual-property-theft/
PB/TK – China’s been making US knockoffs for decades. China’s been stealing US property for decades. China always finds a way to circumvent the laws. So if China is sidestepping the WTO but everyone complains to the WTO, why do we even have a WTO?
