US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the EU investment deal with
China as ‘weak’ in an interview on Tuesday, warning that it does not protect against
risks from Beijing, AFP reported.

“As we stared at it, it was a weak agreement. It didn’t protect the
European workers from the predation of the Chinese Communist Party,”
Pompeo told the Bloomberg television show of investor David Rubenstein.

This is the first time Pompeo, from President Donald Trump’s outgoing
administration, disapproved of the deal in public. President-elect Joe Biden’s
national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, last month appealed for ‘early consultations’
with European allies on “our common concerns about China’s economic
practices.”

Pompeo, a staunch critic of China, stopped short of urging the EU to
dump the agreement but made clear the United States had no interest in anything
similar.

“We care too much about our workers, about our people, about our
manufacturing, about our intellectual property to sign a weak deal that would
continue to allow China to engage in activities that weren’t fair and even,
balanced and reciprocal,” Pompeo said.

The European Union and China approved the deal in principle on December
30 after seven years of negotiations.

The Europeans hope that the investment pact will pry open the lucrative
billion-plus Chinese market for their businesses, offering a needed boost after
the COVID-19 slump.

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The EU moved ahead despite voicing concern about China’s human rights
record, including its mass incarceration of at least one million Uighurs and
other Turkic-speaking Muslims.

The pact marked a major win for China after a concerted push by the
Trump administration to isolate it, including by encouraging all nations to
drop fifth-generation internet from telecom giant Huawei, saying it poses
security risks.