WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday he has selected former Sen. David Perdue of Georgia to serve as his ambassador to China, leaning on a former business executive turned politician to serve as the administration's envoy to America's most potent economic and military adversary.
Trump said in a social media post that Perdue "brings valuable expertise to help build our relationship with China."
Perdue lost his Senate seat to Democrat Jon Ossoff four years ago and ran unsuccessfully in a 2022 primary against Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Perdue pushed Trump's debunked lies about electoral fraud during his failed bid for Georgia governor.
During his time in the Senate, Perdue was labeled as "anti-China" in a 2019 Chinese think tank report. The former Georgia lawmaker advocated that the U.S. needed to build a more robust naval force to cope with threats, including from China.
Before launching his political career, Perdue held a string of top executive positions, including at Sara Lee, Reebok and Dollar General.
"China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature," embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu posted on X. "No one will win a trade war or a #tariff war." He added that China had taken steps in the last year to help stem drug trafficking.
"I have noted the relevant reports," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian when asked about it at a daily briefing in Beijing.
The tariffs, if implemented, could dramatically raise prices for American consumers on everything from gas to automobiles to agricultural products. The U.S. is the largest importer of goods in the world, with Mexico, China and Canada its top three suppliers, according to the most recent U.S. Census data.
"Make the wise choice," Xi cautioned during his November meeting with Biden on the sidelines of an international summit in Peru. "Keep exploring the right way for two major countries to get along well with each other."
A second Trump administration is expected to test U.S.-China relations even more than the Republican's first term, when the U.S. imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion in Chinese products.
"A couple years later, a research group showed that China had bought essentially none of the goods it had promised."