The president-elect inaccurately said that Chinese soldiers operate the Panama Canal. But China’s strategic positions in shipping worry Washington officials.
The Commerce Department requested that private companies comment on the implications of the rule by March. The final decision will fall to the Trump administration.
The companies have found plenty of new channels to the U.S. market — demonstrating the potential limits of the tariffs Donald Trump has promised to impose.
The episode comes at a particularly sensitive moment, just as the Biden White House is dealing with one of the most far-reaching, and damaging, hacks into American infrastructure in the cyberage.
The move escalates supply chain warfare and comes a day after the Biden administration expanded curbs on the sale of advanced American technology to China.
New rules significantly expand restrictions on selling China chip technology, but critics say they also contain carve-outs that are favorable to industry.
The president-elect’s threat to hit Canada, Mexico and China with new tariffs is already rocking business and diplomatic relationships and could topple the trade pacts he signed in his first term.
The president-elect said that he would impose the across-the-board tariffs on Day 1 and that they would stay in place until Canada, Mexico and China halted the flow of drugs and migrants.
President-elect Donald J. Trump is assembling a team of aides bent on confrontation with China. But he also has advisers who do business there, including Elon Musk.