Why in news?
The U.S. President on 14th May threatened to cut ties with China over its role in the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19).
Actions of U.S. and China: Trade Tensions
- The Trump administration on 15th May 2020 moved to block shipments of semiconductors to China’s Huawei Technologies, which it considers a national security risk.
- The President was also directing withdrawal of billions of dollars of American pension fund investments in China.
- In turn, Beijing indicated it is readying countermeasures against US companies like Apple, Boeing, Cisco and Qualcomm which have huge investments in China.
- The plan also calls for moving manufacturing back to the US and gradually eliminating supply chain dependency on China.
What’s in it for India?
- One of the U.S. Senators said that U.S. seeks to deepen its military ties with regional allies and expand equipment sales to Taiwan, India, and Vietnam.
- But any expectation that the US-China spat could be beneficial to New Delhi in terms of US companies moving assembly lines to India has been spiked by Trump and US lawmakers who have warned that such companies would be taxed if they went elsewhere and did not bring back manufacturing to the US.
-Source: Times of India, The Hindu
