President Biden on Tuesday defended his decision to levy sweeping tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and other goods, saying the move protects workers, while business groups argue it will hurt consumers already reeling from sky-high inflation.
Speaking from the White House Rose Garden, Mr. Biden said China’s unfair trade practices have damaged the U.S. economy by flooding the market with cheap goods subsidized by the government. He pointed to the steel market in which less expensive Chinese steel cost 1,800 workers their jobs in Pennsylvania and Ohio in 2000.
“They’re flooding the market. They’re driving manufacturing companies out of business in Europe, but we won’t let that happen here in America,” Mr. Biden said.
The Trump campaign Mr. Biden’s plan is part of a misguided effort to do away with gas-powered electric vehicles.
“Joe Biden’s action today is a weak and futile attempt to distract from the grievous harm his insane Electric Vehicle mandate is doing to the U.S. auto industry and how his radical policies are wiping out thousands of American auto jobs,” Trump Campaign Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Mr. Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee, has zeroed in on Mr. Biden’s efforts to increase the share of electric vehicles driven by Americans. The former president warns of mass job losses and that the required infrastructure is not yet in place.
Mr. Biden has implemented a bevy of rules tightening auto emissions and other standards that would require automakers to sell more electric vehicles and hybrids. The moves are aimed at appeasing the president’s climate-centric base.
Ms. Leavitt said the tariffs are not about protecting American manufacturing, but forcing Americans to support the electric vehicle industry by keeping less expensive Chinese models out of the U.S.
“The fact that these tariffs do not apply to gas-powered cars and trucks but only to Chinese EVs shows that this has nothing to do with protecting American Workers. It’s all about Crooked Joe’s agenda of killing gas-powered automobiles while forcing Americans into ultra-expensive Electric Vehicles they don’t want and can’t afford,” she said in the statement.
The administration is increasing tariffs on $18 billion in Chinese imports across a handful of sectors deemed strategic to national security, with a focus on clean energy goods.
Tariff increases will apply to important steel and aluminum, legacy semiconductors, electric vehicle battery components, critical minerals, solar cells, cranes and medical products from China. The new rates will range from 100% on electric vehicles to 50% for solar components to 25% for all other sectors, and will be imposed over the next two years.
Several goods and technologies imported from China will have their tariffs more than quadrupled. For example, electrical vehicle tariffs will rise from 25% to 100%, and levies on Lithium-ion batteries will increase from 7.5% to 25% by 2026.
The election-year maneuver comes as Mr. Biden looks to project himself as tougher on China than Mr. Trump. During his administration, Mr. Trump imposed more than $300 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods.
Mr. Biden, during the 2020 election, criticized the tariffs, saying they pass pain along to the consumer. However, since taking office Mr. Biden has left Mr. Trump’s tariffs on China in place.
Several business groups criticized Mr. Biden’s action, saying tariffs often backfire and raise consumer prices and inflation. After Mr. Trump slapped tariffs on China, Beijing hit back with tariffs on $101.4 billion in U.S. exports in retaliation. That affected 294,000 American export-related jobs, according to a Brookings Institute Study.
Mr. Biden maintained that the tariffs would not be inflationary because they are on select goods from a single country. He pointed to Mr. Trump’s proposal to impose duties of at least 10% on imports from all countries and a tariff of up to 60% on all Chinese goods, saying something that sweeping will cost Americans.
“And now Trump and MAGA Republicans want across-the-board tariffs on all imports from all countries if reelected, well that would drive costs for families, on average, $1,500 per year each year. He simply doesn’t get it,” Mr. Biden said.
Inflation already remains stubbornly high, and a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released Tuesday revealed that wholesale inflation picked up in April, hitting its highest rate in a year.
The Producer Price Index, which measures the change in prices that manufacturers pay suppliers, was 2.2% higher than it was in April 2023. It was also higher than March, which was a 1.8% increase.
On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.5%, a faster pace than March’s 0.1%, showing prices ran much hotter than economists had expected. Economists had predicted a monthly gain of 0.3%, according to FactSet consensus estimates.
“It’s unfortunate for American consumers, who are still feeling the pain of inflation eating into their annual household earnings,” said Yael Ossowski, deputy director of the Consumer Choice Center, a non-partisan consumer advocacy group. “This is going to add price inflation across the board all in the name of ’Tough Guy’ election-year politics.”
The National Taxpayers Union, a conservative think tank, argued the tariffs break Mr. Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year.
“At a time when Americans are worried about high prices, increasing tariffs on goods they need is remarkably tone-deaf,” said Bryan Riley, NTU’s free trade initiative director. “There is near-universal agreement that Section 301 tariffs failed to achieve their goals while costing U.S. taxpayers the equivalent of $1,700 per household and sparking Chinese retaliation against U.S. farmers and other exporters.”
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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