The National Economic Council has been chairing meetings on the issue and the Treasury Department and National Security Council are involved as well, people familiar with the discussions said. While action is not imminent, according to the people, Trump’s advisers are talking through the various options and their expected impact.
At a dinner hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington last week, a group of China and finance experts debated the value and risks of a financial decoupling from Beijing, including how it could be done and what the impact on U.S. investors would be.
Among the speakers was White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who declined to discuss any specifics, according to people who attended the dinner.
Supportive Mood
The evening also featured deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, a China hawk who was just appointed the No. 2 at Trump’s NSC, as well as members of Congress.
The push to unilaterally limit Chinese access to American capital is spearheaded by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, one of Trump’s most hawkish aides, and officials at the NSC, but people involved in the process say even more dovish advisers have rallied behind some of their suggestions.
An NSC spokesman and Navarro declined to comment, and Pottinger didn’t respond to a request for comment. Spokesmen for the White House and the Treasury also declined to comment.
The arguments for action inside the Trump team vary from simply enforcing U.S. transparency laws and creating a level of reciprocity, to raising national-security concerns with some of the Chinese companies that American pension funds are exposed to, according to people familiar with the conversations.
Some of those companies are firms that the U.S. government has identified as bad actors or has imposed sanctions against. The argument continues that Americans would unlikely want to invest in those companies if they had the choice.
The market capitalization of the 156 Chinese companies, including at least 11 state-owned firms, listed on the three-largest U.S. exchanges — the NASDAQ, New York Stock Exchange and NYSE American — stood at a collective $1.2 trillion as of late February, according to a report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.