Risch Releases Report Grading Biden-Harris Admin on U.S.-European Cooperation on China

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released a report entitled One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: A Review of U.S.-Europe Cooperation on China. This report is a follow-up to Risch’s 2020 report in which he laid out a number of key areas where the United States should specifically collaborate with European colleagues on the challenges posed by China.

“In November 2020, I published a report on the importance of the United States and our European partners working together to counter an increasingly confrontational China. Nearly four years later, China’s efforts to undermine prosperity, security, and good governance in every region of the globe continue to be what I consider the most important foreign policy challenge of our time,” said Risch.

“This updated report looks at the progress, or lack thereof, made by the Biden-Harris Administration on implementing these recommendations and proposes additional steps that must be taken to defend transatlantic security and prosperity. If we are to succeed in confronting China, the next administration must do more than the Biden-Harris Administration has over the last four years. We cannot afford to wait,” Risch concluded.

Full text of this report can be found here.

Key findings of this report include:

• U.S. and European inaction allows China to exploit academic research and foreign lobbying laws. We must reform university funding laws and the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

• The Biden-Harris Administration has no trade agenda. The U.S.-EU Trade & Technology Council is ineffective. The Inflation Reduction Act hurt transatlantic relations & keeps us dependent on Chinese supply chains.

• The Biden-Harris Administration is prioritizing climate cooperation with China while banning liquified natural gas exports to allies and kneecapping the U.S. mining industry’s ability to produce critical minerals.

• U.S. & European policies on strategic tech like artificial intelligence are diverging due to lack of U.S. leadership. The Biden-Harris Administration has also undermined intellectual property rights at the World Trade Organization.

• The Biden-Harris Administration is doing “foreign policy by press release” all over the place, but especially on AUKUS. Three years after its big announcement, we see no reforms or concrete outcomes.

• The Biden-Harris Administration’s bungling policy is contributing to escalating violence and instability in Africa. The United States & Europe are not coordinating in Africa, and that opens doors to China and Russia.

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