Sen. Cotton Calls for Targeted 'Decoupling' From China

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has called for the United States to ''decouple'' from China, saying it should revoke its permanent normal trade relations status and take the same strategy as it has against the Soviet Union for what his report calls the ''breakup or the gradual mellowing'' of the ''Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) power.''

Cotton announced his push during a speech at the Reagan Institute in Chicago on Thursday while unveiling a report compiled by him and his office, ''Beat China: Targeted Decoupling and the Economic Long War.''

''The will and need to confront Communist China is growing,'' he said. ''Now it’s time for action.''

Citing the theft of intellectual property, Cotton emphasized sectors the United States should target for ending connections, such as higher education, entertainment, semiconductors, telecoms and 5G — or fifth generation mobile networks — critical minerals and rare-earth elements, medicine and medical equipment, and artificial intelligence and quantum information science.

''U.S. policymakers must recognize the immense leverage they have over China,'' Cotton’s report says. ''Having grown used to China wielding its domestic market as a weapon, many in the United States seem to have forgotten that U.S. market access is one of the most valuable prizes in the world, particularly for the world’s largest exporter.

''Access to the U.S. market may therefore be the single most powerful point of leverage in the entire competition, provided the United States can create resilient supply chains for essential goods that do not depend on Chinese manufacturing.''

China is a regime that seeks to replace the United States as ''the world’s great power,'' and has had success in many areas because previous administrations had ''failed, flawed policies over the last 30 years, pursued by both parties," he said.

Among those, he said, was the granting of permanent normal trade relation status under Bill Clinton which allowed China to join the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Cotton called for banning ''the sale of cutting-edge semiconductors developed or produced with U.S. software or technology to all Chinese entities.''

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