The Biden administration is New tariffs to be announced soon President Joe Biden will impose sanctions on Chinese electric vehicles and other goods as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter, as he looks for ways to protect the United States’ nascent clean energy industry from a flood of cheap Chinese imports.
Action is coming amid growing concerns Administration insiders believe Biden’s push to boost domestic manufacturing of clean energy products could be undermined by China, which has been flooding global markets with cheap solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles and other products.
The long-awaited tariffs are the culmination of a four-year review of tariffs imposed by former President Donald J. Trump in 2018 on more than $300 billion in Chinese imports. Most of the tariffs imposed by Trump are expected to remain in place, but Mr. Biden plans to further increase taxes in areas the president subsidized in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
These include Chinese electric vehicles, which currently face 25% tariffs. The government is expected to raise this tax rate even higher to make buying Chinese electric cars prohibitively expensive. The government has been considering imposing tariffs of up to 100%, according to a person familiar with the matter.
mr biden Measures were taken earlier this year Blocking connected Chinese cars and trucks, including electric vehicles, from entering the U.S. auto market, saying they pose a national security risk because their operating systems could send sensitive information to Beijing.
The president is seeking to increase pressure on China and demonstrate his willingness to protect U.S. manufacturing ahead of a confrontation with Trump in the November presidential election.
The fate of additional tariffs on China has been the subject of fierce debate within the White House since Biden took office, with economic and political advisers often clashing over how to implement them. But China this year ramped up production of the same products — electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar panels — that the Biden administration invested billions of dollars to start producing in the United States, again exacerbating trade tensions between the two countries. Pressuring Biden to continue imposing tougher trade restrictions.
Trump has said he would escalate his trade war with China if re-elected and said earlier this year that he was considering imposing tariffs of 60% or higher on Chinese imports.
The scale of the tariffs the Biden administration expects to impose on Chinese electric vehicles, batteries and solar products is unclear. Bloomberg News earlier reported the release of the planned review, which will be conducted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Keith BradsherContributed reporting.
