President Biden on Tuesday announced increased tariffs on a range of Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, solar cells, semiconductors and advanced batteries, in what he called an effort to protect America’s strategic industries from a new wave of unfair competitors. We are planning to make an announcement. He receives subsidies from Beijing.
The president also plans to formally support maintaining tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese goods introduced by President Donald J. Trump. While running for the White House in 2020, Biden criticized these tariffs as a tax on American consumers.
Biden’s move comes as he initially promised to eliminate at least some of Trump’s tariffs, but now refuses to concede to his rival in a hard-line appeal to China aimed at swaying industrial voters. It’s the president’s latest escalation in the trade war. Midwest and beyond.
They also reflect Mr. Biden’s efforts to further escalate the trade confrontation with China, which goes against Mr. Trump’s consensus, while focusing on areas of strategic importance to the United States such as clean energy and semiconductors.
The increased tariffs will apply to about $18 billion worth of imports from China each year, White House officials said. The biggest increase would be to quadruple the tariffs on Chinese electric cars from 25% to 100%. The move is aimed at protecting a corner of the U.S. auto industry that is set to receive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal subsidies to help the country transition to a clean energy future.
Biden plans to use government investment in heavy industry, including electric vehicles and other green technologies, to create middle-class jobs and help win battleground states where some of those industries are based. We are betting on our efforts. Biden aides gave a nod to trade policy ahead of his announcement, listing states expected to benefit from tariffs.
Lael Brainard, head of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters: “China’s injustices are affecting communities in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and across the country where President Biden’s investment policies have an opportunity to return.” “We know we’re causing damage,” he said.
Brainard also criticized the Trump administration for what he called a “failed” effort to force China to change its unfair trade practices.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who has previously criticized tariffs as a tax on consumers, said the new tax is necessary because China’s excess industrial capacity poses a threat to the United States, its allies, and emerging markets. He said it was justified. He said the Biden administration will not allow cheap exports from China to hurt American workers.
“President Biden and I have seen in the past the impact that a surge in certain artificially cheap Chinese imports has had on American society, and we will not tolerate it again,” Yellen said. explained that it was not aimed at “anti-tariffs.” -China. “
China’s Ministry of Commerce criticized the tariffs in a statement, saying, “China firmly opposes them.” The statement said the Biden administration’s decision was a “classic political maneuver” that “seriously affects the atmosphere of bilateral cooperation.”
“China will take decisive measures to protect its rights and interests,” the statement said, calling on the United States to rescind its decision.
Administration officials have long discussed lowering some of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which apply to a wide range of products such as clothing and home lighting, while raising levies in more strategic areas. But officials noted that a long-awaited enforcement review by Biden’s Office of the Trade Representative, also scheduled to be announced Tuesday, concluded that China’s disregard for international trade rules meant all tariffs should remain in place.
Officials said this week that they believe U.S. companies that source products and parts from overseas have either adapted to the original tariffs or used the official process to request exemptions.
The relative value of the goods that Mr. Trump initially imposed tariffs on, compared with the much smaller value of the goods that Mr. Biden targeted, reflects a critical difference in the two countries’ competitive approaches to trade with China. .
Mr. Trump supported broad tariffs as a way to exert influence over China, given that China’s export economy remains heavily dependent on American consumers. During his tenure, he sought to use tariffs as a club to negotiate more favorable trade terms between the two countries and bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, with little success.
Trump has vowed to go even further if he wins in November, including restricting investment between the two countries and completely banning some Chinese products from the United States. He also pledged to apply this approach more broadly by imposing an additional 10% tariff on all imported goods, regardless of origin.
Biden has chosen to raise tariffs on China in areas where his administration is targeting growth and where the United States is investing huge sums of money, such as clean energy technology and semiconductors.
The tax rate for Chinese-made solar cells will double to 50%. The proportion of certain advanced batteries and the critical minerals required for their manufacture will rise to 25%. Semiconductor tariffs will double to 50%. Some of these increases will be postponed in an apparent effort to give domestic companies time to expand their production and find other sources of supply outside of China.
Other tariffs would impact industries in key battleground states, including heavy metals. The tax rate on some imported steel and aluminum products will triple to 25%.
Biden also plans to raise tariffs on some medical equipment, such as masks and surgical gloves, that officials say are essential to the pandemic response.
Administration officials say these increases are in response to the Chinese government’s “unfair and non-market practices,” including state subsidies to factories and what officials say is theft of innovative ideas from foreign competitors. It said it was an appropriate countermeasure.
“China’s forced technology transfer and intellectual property theft will result in China controlling 70, 80, even 90 percent of global production of critical inputs needed for our technology, infrastructure, energy, and healthcare. “The United States is contributing to the United States’ national security and creating an unacceptable risk to the U.S. supply chain and economy,” administration officials said in a fact sheet distributed ahead of the announcement.
Responding to a question about the tariff report at a regular foreign ministry press conference on Tuesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China would “take all necessary measures to protect legitimate rights and interests.”
Many economists oppose tariffs because they tend to act as an effective tax on domestic consumers by raising prices. Administration officials said this week that they do not expect the tariff hikes to accelerate price increases, which are already uncomfortably fast for many consumers, because they are so narrowly targeted.
Labor leaders and Democratic lawmakers were expected to welcome the announcement, but some Democrats, like Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, have already pushed Biden to go further and ban Chinese electric vehicles. I am asking you to do so.
Telecom managing director Adam Hodge said the tariffs, first by Trump and now by Biden, reflect growing awareness in and outside Washington of China’s trade practices that are costing American workers jobs. He said there was. Bree Pulpit International in Washington, former press secretary for Mr. Biden’s Office of the Trade Representative and National Security Council.
“We’ve learned to be smart about it,” Hodge said. “This is smart politics because Americans are sensitive to what they’re seeing in communities across the country.”
Alan Rapeport Contributed to the report. Qiao Shiyi Contributed to research from Seoul.
