'We're at economic war with China': Steve Bannon lays out China trade plans in wide-ranging interview
"The economic war with China is everything," Bannon told writer Robert Kuttner. He warned that the US would be on the verge of an "inflection point" in which China could overtake the US as the world's most powerful nation within a decade.
Bannon represents the nationalist wing of the White House, a group that ostensibly sees the US' diplomatic and financial largesse as being exploited by other nations, including China.
Along with senior advisers Sebastian Gorka and Stephen Miller, Bannon has sought to promote President Donald Trump's "America first" agenda which, among other things, broadly calls for the US to rely less on other nations and discontinue policies Trump sees as disadvantageous to Americans.
Trump took further steps in that direction on Monday when he announced that he intended to sign a measure that would open an investigation into intellectual property violations against American companies by Chinese firms.
The measure draws upon Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974, which would allow Trump to place a tariff on another country without Congressional approval, Business Insider's Linette Lopez wrote on Monday, adding that such a move would be seen by China as an act of aggression amid lingering uncertainty surrounding North Korea, a close ally of China, and its nuclear ambitions.
Bannon insisted the Trump administration needed to be "maniacally focused" on its economic war with China and claimed the US "may never recover" if we lose.