Washington
CNN
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President Joe Biden is raising tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports across a handful of areas deemed strategic to national security. This is an attempt to paralyze the Chinese government’s development of key technologies and prioritize U.S. production instead.
The increase applies to imported steel and aluminum, conventional semiconductors, electric vehicles, battery parts, critical minerals, solar cells, cranes and medical products. The new tariffs cover 100% of electric vehicles, 50% of photovoltaic components and 25% of all other sectors, and will apply over the next two years.
“China is using the same strategies it has always used to promote its own growth at the expense of other countries,” said Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council. “China is too big to play by its own rules.”
Biden announced the new tariffs in a Rose Garden speech on Tuesday, saying he seeks “fair competition, not conflict, with China.”
“The fact is that American workers can work harder than anyone else and compete better than anyone else, as long as the competition is fair,” Biden said. “It hasn’t been fair for too long.”
Biden’s predecessor, former President Donald Trump, enacted a sweeping tariff program on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports during his administration, aimed at curbing competition that threatened national security interests. It drew on the authority of provisions in U.S. trade law that authorize the use of tariffs. The same trade law also requires an evaluation of the effectiveness of these tariff programs every four years, and the Biden administration’s decision is the result of that review. CNN previously reported on the upcoming changes.
White House officials also said they had rewritten the program’s parameters to reflect the Biden administration’s policy priorities, particularly the transition to clean energy.
“China cannot be the only country producing the clean technology for the world that we need,” the official said. “We need to diversify and not produce our most important goods and technologies intensively. …That creates resilient supply chains and clean technologies that we believe will create It’s a thinking kind of dynamic.”
Tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China will more than quadruple from 27.5% to 100%. This is a policy measure aimed at countering the Chinese government’s practice of imposing a 40% tariff on auto imports from the United States while encouraging aggressively low pricing by domestic EV manufacturers.
“We’re not going to flood the market with China and make it impossible for American automakers to compete fairly,” Biden said Tuesday.
He added, “Look, folks, I’m determined that the future of electric vehicles will be built in America, by union workers.”
Chinese manufacturer BYD’s Seagull electric car retails for about $10,000, a fraction of the price of competing U.S. products.
“It was important to raise tariffs sufficiently significantly to try to level the playing field,” a second administration official said.
The Chinese government is known for introducing costly counterpunch. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday that China “opposes the unilateral imposition of tariffs in violation of (World Trade Organization) rules and will do everything necessary to protect its legitimate rights.” We will take action.”
After President Trump announced sweeping tariff policies, China slapped tariffs on $101.4 billion in U.S. exports, a retaliation that the Brookings Institution estimates has affected 294,000 U.S. export jobs. .
Biden acknowledged Tuesday that he expects China will likely retaliate in some way in response to newly announced tariffs on China.
“It’s about saving American jobs,” Biden said in an interview with Yahoo Finance published Tuesday. “I’m sure China will say a lot on this matter, but the fact is that China has already…been way over the top on this matter. I don’t think it will lead to an international conflict or anything like that. But they will probably look for ways to increase tariffs on unrelated products.”
Reacting to news of the impending tariffs, President Trump spoke outside the New York courtroom where Trump is being tried on Tuesday, suggesting that Biden should have taken these steps earlier in his term.
“China is eating our lunch right now,” President Trump said outside the courtroom. Asked to respond to President Trump’s statements after signing the tariffs, Biden said his predecessor “has been feeding them for a long time.”
The White House is refusing to speculate on how Beijing may now fight back. Officials say parallel investigations by partners in Europe, Brazil and Turkey have strengthened their position.
“What China produces is [goods] “at a speed and trajectory that far exceeds any plausible estimate of global demand,” the first official said.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken each raised this point with their Chinese counterparts during their official visits to China in April. Administration officials considered announcing the changes in April in preparation for Biden’s tariff speech in the middle of this month, two people familiar with the matter said, but ultimately decided to make the change public in order to preserve the diplomatic trip. passed.
Mandel Gunn/AFP/Getty Images
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Trade Representative Katherine Tai await President Joe Biden’s speech.
On April 17, Mr. Biden spoke at the United Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh, announcing that President Trump would triple the tariffs imposed on certain steel and aluminum products imported from China and that new measures would be taken against unfair shipbuilding practices. called for an investigation. Biden argued that the Chinese government is providing state funding to Chinese steel companies to produce more steel than economic demand, driving down prices and making it impossible for other companies to compete.
“They’re not competing,” Biden said of China. “They are cheating.”
It’s a message that will play well beyond the so-called Blue Wall, a handful of manufacturing-heavy states in the Midwest that will be important to both candidates during an election in which trade is once again at the center of attention.
Less favorable is the Pacific region, where China’s Ministry of Commerce has accused the US of “false accusations” and “misconduct.”
In another executive order issued Monday, Biden forced the Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining company MineOne to sell land near Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. The order states that Mine One’s proximity to the Air Force base poses national security concerns because the company uses “specialized foreign-made equipment that may facilitate surveillance and espionage.” states that it increases the risk of
The decision comes amid the U.S. government’s latest attempts to limit the influence of Chinese companies over U.S. consumers and national security, especially in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election in November.
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Sam Fossum, Kathryn Monaghan and Michael Williams contributed to this report.
