President Biden is expected to announce Tuesday that he will increase tariffs on a variety of Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, solar cells, semiconductors and advanced batteries, in an effort to protect strategic American industries from unfair new competitors. Received a grant from Beijing.
The president will also formally approve the continuation of tariffs imposed by President Donald J. Trump on more than $300 billion of Chinese goods. Mr. Biden criticized these tariffs during his 2020 White House run as a tax on American consumers.
Mr. Biden’s move is the latest escalation of the trade war from a president who first promised to repeal at least some of Trump’s tariffs but has now given up no ground to his rival while making a tough appeal to China to win over voters in the industry. Midwest and beyond.
It also reflects President Biden’s efforts to focus on areas of strategic importance to the United States, such as clean energy and semiconductors, while building on a trade showdown that ignores President Trump’s agreement with China.
White House officials said the increased tariffs would apply to about $18 billion worth of annual imports from China. The biggest increase is to quadruple tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 25% to 100%. The move aims to protect a segment of the U.S. auto industry that is set to receive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal subsidies to help the U.S. transition to a clean energy future.
Mr. Biden is seeking to leverage government investments in heavy industry, including electric vehicles and other green technologies, to create middle-class jobs and help win swing states that house some of those industries. Biden aides nodded to trade politics before the announcement, singling out states expected to benefit from the tariffs.
“We are seeing China’s unfair practices in Michigan, Pennsylvania and communities across the country having a chance to make a comeback thanks to President Biden’s investment agenda,” Lael Brainard, chairman of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters. “I know it has caused damage,” he said.
Mr. Brainerd also criticized the Trump administration for “failed” efforts to force China to change its unfair trade practices.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who previously denounced the tariffs as a tax on consumers, said the new levies were justified because China’s excess industrial capacity poses a threat to the United States, its allies and emerging markets. She said the Biden administration will not allow cheap Chinese exports to harm American workers.
Representative Yellen said, “President Biden and I have seen firsthand in the past the surge of artificially cheap Chinese imports and its impact on American society,” and added, “We will not tolerate this again.” -china.”
Administration officials have long discussed lowering some of Trump’s tariffs that apply to a wide range of products, including clothing and home lighting, while also raising levies on more strategic areas. But officials pointed to the long-awaited results of Biden’s trade representative’s mandated review, which concluded that all tariffs should remain in place because China violated international trade rules.
Officials said this week that they believed U.S. companies that source products and components overseas had either adjusted to the initial tariffs or used formal processes to request tariff exemptions.
The relative value of the goods Mr. Trump originally imposed tariffs on, compared with the much smaller value of the goods targeted by Mr. Biden, reflects a crucial difference in competitive approaches to trade with China.
President Trump has favored broad tariffs as a means of exerting influence over China, given that China’s export economy remains heavily dependent on American consumers. During his tenure, he tried to use tariffs as a club to negotiate more favorable trade terms between countries and bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, but with little success.
President Trump has pledged to go one step further if he wins in November, restricting investment between the two countries and banning some Chinese products entirely from the United States. He also promised to apply this approach more broadly by imposing an additional 10% tariff on all imports, regardless of origin.
Mr. Biden decided to increase China tariffs in areas the administration is targeting for growth and in which the United States has invested heavily, including clean energy technology and semiconductors.
The proportion of Chinese solar cells will double to 50%. The percentage of certain advanced batteries increases by up to 25% along with the essential minerals needed to make them. Semiconductor tariffs will double to 50%. Some of this increase will be delayed by apparent efforts to allow domestic companies to increase their own production and find sources of supply outside of China.
Other tariffs will affect industries that are in significant flux, including heavy metals. Tariffs on certain imported steel and aluminum products will triple to 25%.
President Biden also plans to increase tariffs on some medical equipment that officials say are essential to the pandemic response, such as masks and surgical gloves.
Administration officials see the increase as an appropriate response to “unfair and unmarket practices” by the Chinese government, including state subsidies for factories and stealing innovative ideas from foreign competitors.
“China’s forced technology transfer and intellectual property theft have contributed to its control of 70, 80, and even 90% of global production of key inputs needed for technology, infrastructure, energy, and healthcare, which is unacceptable to America’s supply chains and economy. It created an uncontrollable risk. security,” administration officials said in a fact sheet distributed ahead of the announcement.
“China will take all necessary measures to protect its legitimate rights and interests,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said at the ministry’s regular press conference on Tuesday in response to questions about the tariff report.
Many economists oppose tariffs because they tend to act as an effective tax on domestic consumers by raising prices. Administration officials said this week they did not expect the tariff hikes to add to the price increases. This is already uncomfortably fast for many consumers.
Union leaders and Democratic lawmakers were expected to welcome the announcement, but some Democrats, such as Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, have already called on Biden to go further and ban Chinese electric vehicles.
The embrace of tariffs, first by President Trump and now by President Biden, reflects growing awareness inside and outside Washington of China’s trade practices that have cost American workers jobs, said Adam Hodge, managing director at the telecommunications company. . He is Bully Pulpit International in Washington and a former spokesman for Mr. Biden’s trade representative and National Security Council.
“We were smart about it,” Mr. Hodge said. “This is smart politics because it responds to what Americans are seeing in communities across America.”
Alan Rapeport contributed to the report. Zhao Shii contributed research from Seoul.
