Donald Trump’s election injects greater uncertainty, and potentially increased contention, into the trade and investment relationship between the United States and China. In this podcast, Paul Haenle spoke with Claire Reade, a senior associate with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a senior counsel at Arnold & Porter, about her experience shaping the development of U.S.-China trade and economic ties over the past decade.

Reade, who formerly served as the assistant U.S. trade representative for China affairs during the Obama administration, provided a broader perspective on the development of U.S.-China commercial relations since China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. Reade, who has been involved in nine previous WTO cases brought against China, noted that China’s WTO membership offers an important tool for managing the increasingly complex U.S.-China trade relationship going forward. Reade also discussed the development of the U.S.-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue, which she viewed as a valuable forum for regularly engaging China in high-level conversations. While she advocated for the dialogue's continuation under the Trump administration, Reade said that greater effort should be made to ensure the proper interlocutors from both the United States and China are involved in order to avoid “dueling monologues.”

Paul Haenle

Paul Haenle is the director of the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy based at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Haenle’s research focuses on Chinese foreign policy and U.S.-China relations.

Claire Reade

Claire Reade is a senior associate with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and senior counsel at Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC. She previously served as assistant U.S. trade representative for China affairs in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.