Washington - A comprehensive set of bipartisan recommendations was released on Tuesday by a U.S. congressional committee, outlining legislative goals for 2024 to reset America's economic ties with China. The committee's aim is to prevent the U.S. from becoming the "economic vassal" of its primary geopolitical rival, drawing on a year of hearings and investigations by the House of Representatives' select committee on China.

The recommendations encompass a wide spectrum of potential changes, ranging from significant shifts in U.S. regulatory approaches, such as imposing restrictions on outbound investment to China, to more nuanced legal revisions, including reducing the duty-free shipment threshold from China to the U.S. The committee, led by Republican chair Mike Gallagher and Democratic ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi, acknowledged that implementing these measures would "require hard trade-offs and will not be without cost."

The committee emphasized that the United States faces a crucial choice: either accepting Beijing's vision of America as its economic vassal or standing up for security, values, and prosperity. Despite the November meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in San Francisco, aimed at improving strained relations, the committee noted that it saw little change in its 150 recommendations.

Among the proposed measures are calls for a ban or Chinese divestment of the social media platform TikTok, the imposition of import duties on legacy Chinese semiconductors by the Commerce Department, stress-testing U.S. banks by the Federal Reserve to withstand potential market access loss to China, and restricting U.S. federal agencies from purchasing Chinese-made drones.

Speaking to reporters, Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi characterized the recommendations as a blueprint for bipartisan legislation intended to be advanced in the coming year. The committee, established earlier this year, aims to convey to Americans the importance of competing with China and has advocated for the selective decoupling of the U.S. and Chinese economies.

Gallagher mentioned ongoing discussions among Republicans regarding legislation to restrict U.S. outbound investment to China, expressing hope that these deliberations would lead to responsible legislative activity in the first quarter of 2024. He highlighted that even stakeholders skeptical of investment restrictions in military and critical technological areas might welcome the predictability that legislating the issue would provide.