“This would be another step in ratcheting up the pressure,” said Michael Pillsbury, a China scholar at the Hudson Institute who said he raised the concept of investment restrictions with the White House after negotiations with China broke down in the spring.
“We’re at very low levels of pressure compared to what could be done,” Michael Pillsbury, an outside adviser to Trump on China and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told POLITICO earlier this month.
“It was very close and then something mysterious happened. China reneged,” Pillsbury said. “The mystery is the hardliners [in Beijing]. They apparently were not aware of the 150-page deal. They somehow became aware of it in April. Some new players got involved in Beijing and next thing we know their reneging took place.”