Inside U.S. Trade Quotes Kevin Wolf on Addressing National Security in U.S.-China Phase-Two Trade Deal

Kevin Wolf, international trade partner at Akin Gump, has been quoted in the Inside U.S. Trade article “Phase-two U.S.-China deal depends on national security, but can that be addressed?” regarding whether Washington and Beijing can reach an agreement on a broader, second trade agreement. According to the article, it depends on whether the two countries can overcome several U.S. national security concerns.

The phase-one agreement that went into effect last month primarily included commitments by Beijing to increase purchases of U.S. goods and services, the article reports. During a panel discussion at Georgetown Law School, Wolf argued against dealing with national security concerns via trade negotiations for a second agreement.

“The two topics should have nothing to do with one another,” argued Wolf. If a product or technology is “controlled to accomplish a national security or foreign policy objective, whatever is going on with respect to the trade relationship is irrelevant and you shouldn’t have a national security objective as a tool to trade off or leverage or compromise to achieve some unrelated economic objective in a trade negotiation,” he said.