The Trump administration has decided to restrict Chinese investment in US companies and start-ups in sectors from aerospace to robotics as it prepares to deploy its latest weapon in the escalating trade war with Beijing.
The move could have even greater long-term consequences for the economic relationship between the US and China than the escalating tit-for-tat tariff war, according to experts, and mark one of the biggest changes to the US’s open investment regime in decades.
It is set to come in a series of restrictions on inbound Chinese investment that President Donald Trump has ordered the US Treasury to draft and release this week. They are meant to accompany already-announced tariffs on $50bn in Chinese goods aimed at forcing change in Beijing’s intellectual property practices.