Donald Trump has set a 60-day deadline for US financial regulators to recommend ways to crack down on Chinese companies listed in America that fail to abide by proper accounting standards.
The move on Thursday will intensify the debate in Washington over financial decoupling with Beijing, at a time when bilateral tensions between the world’s largest economies have already been heightened by China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the national security law imposed on Hong Kong.
Mr Trump said in a memorandum that he was instructing the presidential working group on financial markets — which includes Steven Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary; Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman; Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and Heath Tarbert, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — to suggest actions the executive branch could take to curb certain Chinese listings in the next two months.