US Senate backs former Republican lawmaker David Perdue as ambassador to China

WASHINGTON - A majority of the US Senate on April 29 backed one-time US senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China, a position the former business executive assumes amid a deep strategic rivalry and blistering trade war between the two countries.

The vote was 67 to 29 in favour of confirming President Donald Trump’s nominee, who was a Republican US senator from Georgia from 2015 to 2021 and previously lived in Hong Kong during a 40-year career as an international business executive.

Fifteen Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the Democrats joined Mr Trump’s fellow Republicans in backing Mr Perdue for the position.

Despite being a critic of China and its ruling Communist Party, Mr Perdue has faced some pushback over his business track record of supporting offshoring US jobs to countries with lower labour costs, a practice Mr Trump has railed against for hollowing out the US manufacturing base.

In 2024, Mr Perdue condemned Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “modern-day emperor”, writing in an essay that Beijing wanted to “destroy capitalism and democracy” and the US-led world order.

In nominating Mr Perdue, Mr Trump had said he would be instrumental in implementing a “productive working relationship with China’s leaders”.

During his confirmation hearing in early April, Mr Perdue said the US approach to China must be “nuanced, non-partisan, and strategic”.

Mr Perdue’s nomination marked a return to the frequent practice over recent decades of sending former politicians to the US embassy in Beijing, after Democratic President Joe Biden tapped veteran diplomat Nicholas Burns in 2021.

Exact role unclear

It was not immediately clear how central a role Mr Perdue would play in the fraught US-China relationship. Since beginning his second White House term on Jan 20, Mr Trump has

unleashed tariffs of 145 per cent

on most Chinese goods over what his administration sees as decades of trade abuses by China. Beijing responded with its own tariffs of 125 per cent on US products.

“In this administration, diplomacy with Beijing will be driven from the top. Trump – and key figures like the Treasury and Commerce secretaries – will likely play the dominant roles in any substantive engagement with China, if for no other reason than Trump really considers himself negotiator-in-chief,” said Mr Craig Singleton, senior director for China at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies.

Adding to global trade confusion, Mr Trump has repeatedly urged Mr Xi to call him for discussions about a potential trade deal, but Beijing has publicly denied such a call has taken place recently and said

tariff negotiations had not begun.

Economists broadly warn that the tariffs will lead to higher prices for US consumers and increase the risk of recession. And the fallout from the trade war reverberated further through the corporate world on April 29, as

delivery giant UPS said it would cut 20,000 jobs

to lower costs, while General Motors pulled its outlook and pushed its investor call to May 1 pending possible changes to trade policy.

Nonetheless, Trump administration officials say the two sides are in routine working-level contact and have signalled some desire to defuse tensions. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said both sides see the current state of play as untenable.

Beyond trade, Beijing and Washington face a host of serious disputes, including tensions over China’s military build-up and its pressure towards Taiwan and other US partners and allies in the Indo-Pacific region. REUTERS