Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that he has chosen former Senator David Perdue as ambassador to China, tapping a former politician with business experience to help guide a relationship riven by deep mistrust and trade tensions.
“He will have an active role in implementing my strategy to maintain peace in the region, and a fruitful working relationship with China’s leaders,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Trump, who takes office on January 20, 2025, said he would impose additional 10% tariffs on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop the smuggling of the addictive narcotic fentanyl.
He also threatened to impose tariffs of more than 60% on Chinese goods during his election campaign.
Perdue, a Republican from Georgia who served in the Senate from 2015 to 2021, previously lived in Hong Kong during a 40-year career as a business executive.
Perdue’s nomination marks a return to the repeated practice over recent decades of sending former politicians to the US embassy in Beijing, after President Joe Biden appointed veteran diplomat Nicholas Burns in 2021.
Trump has nominated hardliners from China to other senior roles in his administration, including Senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state, in a sign that his policy toward the United States’ main strategic rival may go beyond trade measures.
In his first term as president, Trump appointed former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as his ambassador to China. Branstad has sought to leverage his relationships with Chinese officials, including with Xi Jinping before he became China’s supreme leader, to help navigate trade tensions. But the two sides are still mired in an unprecedented trade war.
The ambassador’s role in fraught bilateral relations remains to be seen. Some analysts say Beijing is likely to seek direct or senior-level presidential engagement with Trump and his closest advisers, in order to deal with the almost certain return of trade tensions.