Trump Says: ‘We Don’t Have to do Business With China’

US President Donald Trump, in a Fox News interview raised the possibility of decoupling the U.S. economy from China, a major purchaser of US goods.

Trump initially told interviewer Steve Hilton “we don’t have to” do business with China, and then later said about decoupling: “Well it’s something that if they don’t treat us right I would certainly, I would certainly do that.”

However Trump entered into a high-stakes trade war with China before reaching a partial Phase 1 trade deal in January.

In June, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said a decoupling of the American and Chinese economies will result if the companies are not allowed to compete on a fair and level basis in China’s economy.