WASHINGTON – President Biden will announce plans to impose new 15% tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum as he campaigns for votes in Pittsburgh on Wednesday – reprising the former president’s trade war Donald Trump with Beijing after a three-year lull.
Biden administration officials announced the move during a press call with reporters – saying China was poised to flood the U.S. market with cheap, undercutting steel and aluminum so do American manufacturers.
“China’s policy overcapacity poses a serious risk to the future of the U.S. steel and aluminum industry,” one official said.
“In manufacturing sectors like steel, China already produces more than it or the world can easily absorb. Subsidies and other forms of support from China lead to exports flooding global markets at artificially low prices, undercutting U.S. steel.”
Biden maintained most of Trump’s tariffs ahead of their looming election rematch in November — including most countries’ 25% steel and 10% aluminum tariffs, imposed in 2018 under of section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. .
Trump imposed further tariffs on China under an authority known as Section 301 – with tariffs of between 7.5% and 25% still in effect under Biden on a range of products Chinese imports represent approximately $362 billion annually, or more than half of China’s overall volume.
The former president’s escalation with China was part of a plan to impose a grandiose new trade deal to improve the United States’ standing, which stalled when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, just two months after Trump and the Chinese government agreed on a “phase.” A single set of reforms.
Biden’s plans to strengthen sanctions on Chinese metals come as he fights for votes in steel-producing Pennsylvania, which Trump narrowly won in 2016 on a pledge to change trade relations for the benefit of national industry.
The state is expected to be one of the few to tip the scales between Trump and Biden this year.
Republicans have accused Biden of going too soft on China on various issues, including stopping exports of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans since Biden took office, because he is increasingly reduced to non-opioid medications and fake prescriptions.
Biden’s additional 15% tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum under Section 301 would be implemented following a formal review of Trump-era tariffs.
“The current average duty on steel and aluminum is 7.5% under Section 301,” the White House said in a fact sheet, which says Biden is “calling on the U.S. (trade representative Katherine Tai) to consider tripling the existing 301 tariff rate on Chinese steel and aluminum.
New York Post
