Trump administration officials are weighing a range of options that could inflict additional economic pain on China as the United States continues looking for ways to force Beijing to change longstanding practices that have put American companies at a disadvantage. The ideas under consideration would move the White House’s negotiating tool of choice beyond tariffs toward limiting China’s access to American capital markets and imposing greater scrutiny on its companies, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Administration officials, including members of the National Security Council, have begun pressing the Securities and Exchange Commission to tighten its checks on Chinese firms. They are also looking for ways to reduce the exposure of American retirement funds to certain Chinese companies. Many of those efforts have been proceeding independently from the trade talks — which resume again this week — and are fueled by longer-term considerations of China’s economic and security threats. Some White House advisers now view those options as an additional lever to force China to make the kinds of deep economic concessions that have so far proved elusive in the talks, which have dragged on for more than a year.