Steve Bannon says the US is already in an ‘economic war’ with China

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White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon said the U.S. is already at an “economic war with China”, The American Prospect reported.

President Donald Trump’s Chief Strategist Steve Bannon didn’t mince his words about the White House’s outlook on China in a new interview published Wednesday by The American Prospect.

The president on Monday signed a memorandum that could lead to a trade investigation of alleged Chinese theft of intellectual property. That came as Trump presses for China’s cooperation in reining in North Korea’s nuclear program.

“To me,” Bannon told the magazine in a phone call, “the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we’re five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we’ll never be able to recover.”

“We’re at economic war with China,” Bannon reportedly said. “It’s in all their literature. They’re not shy about saying what they’re doing. One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it’s gonna be them if we go down this path. On Korea, they’re just tapping us along. It’s just a sideshow.”

Bannon added there is “no military solution” to North Korea due to the large population in Seoul. That appeared to contradict Trump’s previous threat of “fire and fury” against Kim Jong Un’s country.

Read the article for details about Bannon’s phone call with The American Prospect.