The U.S. administration of President Joe Biden said Tuesday it will quadruple the tariff rate on Chinese electric vehicles to 100 percent in 2024 and sharply raise levies on other key sectors, such as solar equipment and semiconductors, in an attempt to give American workers a chance to compete.
With the U.S. presidential election approaching in November, Biden has been seeking to convince voters, especially unionized workers in swing states, that their jobs will be better protected if they give him a second term.
Senior officials of the administration said the tariff rate on solar cells from China will double to 50 percent in 2024 and that on semiconductors will double to 50 percent by 2025.
They said the tariff rate on lithium-ion EV batteries will increase from 7.5 percent to 25 percent this year, while that on lithium-ion non-EV batteries will increase from 7.5 percent to 25 percent in 2026.
Meanwhile, tariffs on certain steel and aluminum imports from China will more than triple to 25 percent in 2024.
"China is using the same playbook it has before to power its own growth at the expense of others by continuing to invest despite excess Chinese capacity and flooding global markets with exports that are underpriced due to unfair practices," Biden's top economic adviser Lael Brainard told reporters.
"China is simply too big to play by its own rules," she said, noting that the administration's actions against the world's second-largest economy, which has dominated global markets for such products, ensure that U.S. companies have "the opportunity to compete on a level playing field in industries that are vital to our future."
In mid-April, when Biden delivered a speech at the United Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the Nov. 5 election, he said his administration would seek to triple the current average tariff rate of 7.5 percent on steel and aluminum products from China.
All the tariffs fall under Section 301 of the country's 1974 trade law, which authorizes the use of levies against a foreign country's allegedly unfair practices.
The section was a favorite tool of former President Donald Trump in justifying the imposition of higher duties on Chinese imports when he started a trade war with Beijing in 2018.
On Tuesday, the announcement made by the Biden administration covered many other tariff increases on Chinese imports, such as those on ship-to-shore cranes and medical products, but the officials stressed they were carefully targeted at strategic sectors, unlike the broad-based actions taken by Trump.
The tariff rate on ship-to-shore cranes, regarded by the administration as vital pieces of infrastructure for the smooth flow of critical goods to and from the United States, will increase from zero to 25 percent in 2024.
Of the medical products, tariffs on syringes and needles will increase from zero to 50 percent in 2024 and those on rubber medical and surgical gloves will increase from 7.5 percent to 25 percent in 2026.
The officials said the newly targeted sectors are those in which the United States is now making massive investments and Biden's approach would not raise costs or threaten jobs.
"There's no inflationary impact of these actions," according to one of the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the announcement. "There is a comeback that we're seeing across communities that have long cycles of disinvestment. These tariffs will protect and safeguard those gains."
