president biden announced on Tuesday He has announced significant tariffs on Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, solar cells, semiconductors, and advanced batteries, to protect strategic U.S. industries from a wave of new competitors receiving unfair subsidies from the Chinese government. I raised it to .
The president also formally supported maintaining tariffs on $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 after he initially promised to eliminate at least some of Trump's tariffs, but now he is pitching a tough stance on China and refusing to make concessions to his rival to win support from voters. This is the recent escalation of the trade war by the current president. The industrial 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.
In remarks from the White House, Biden said his administration is “combining investments in the United States with strategic and targeted tariffs.”
Mr. Biden, standing before a crowd that included leaders of several labor unions and representatives of steel, aluminum and other manufacturers, contrasted his approach with Mr. Trump.
“My predecessor promised to increase U.S. exports and revitalize manufacturing,” the president said. “But he did neither. He failed.”
After the speech, when asked by reporters about Trump's claim that China is economically “eating our lunch,” Biden responded: “He's been feeding them for a long time,” Biden said.
In a sign of new turmoil in trade politics, labor leaders, many Democrats, some industry groups and even environmentalists praised Biden's decision, while the Republican National Committee He complained and criticized China for not being tough enough. .
The National Retail Federation, which represents many companies that source or sell Chinese products, called on Biden to reverse course and increase tariffs. “As consumers continue to fight inflation, the last thing the administration needs to do is protect U.S. importers and, by extension, U.S. consumers,” said David French, the group's executive vice president of government relations. “It's about imposing additional taxes on imported products that you have to pay.” release.
Only a few politicians, including Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, followed suit. “This is terrible news for American consumers and a major setback for clean energy,” Polis said in a social media post. “Tariffs are a direct and regressive tax on Americans, and this tax increase will hurt every family.”
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, director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters: “China's misdeeds are hurting communities in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and across the country that President Biden's investment policies have an opportunity to restore.'' “I am aware that we are giving the same amount of money,” 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 called on the US to withdraw the decision, saying, “China will take decisive measures to protect its rights and interests.''
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, 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.
Trade experts said the political calendar likely took into account the timing and scope of the tariffs.
“The zero-sum game of industrial policy that the two countries are engaged in, combined with the looming US election season, is reaching an inevitable climax in the form of increased tariffs on some imports from China,” the former state official said. said Eswar Prasad, Director General of Security. China Division of the International Monetary Fund.
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%.
The tariffs were praised by some industries hit hardest by cheap Chinese exports.
“As the United States works to build manufacturing in key clean energy supply chains to reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains, we are using every tool at our disposal to boost the U.S. solar manufacturing industry. We need to take advantage of it,” said Executive Director Mike Carr. American Federation of Solar Energy Manufacturers. “The government made the right decision to strengthen protections for the solar components it plans to build in the United States.”
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.
U.S. officials say the increases are in response to China'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. , creating an unacceptable risk to the U.S. supply chain and economy,” U.S. 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. U.S. officials said this week that because the tariff hikes are narrowly targeted, they don't expect prices to rise quickly enough to already be uncomfortable for many consumers.
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.”
Qiao Shiyi Contributed to research from Seoul.
