The President Joe Biden administration is home to economic globalists who are quietly working to reduce tariffs on China-made goods. They were first imposed by Trump’s predecessor, despite the opposition of American union workers.
Biden recently stated that his administration is looking into possible cuts to Section 301 tariffs, which apply to billions of dollars of Chinese-made products. Labor unions have long praised the tariffs as a way to boost American wages and American manufacturing.
Exclusive Reuters report details how Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen leads the charge in the Biden administration to reduce U.S. tariffs against China. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is an economist who wants to halt tariff cuts.
Sources say that Janet Yellen, U.S. Treasury Secretary, is pushing for a reduction in many of these tariffs. Katherine Tai, U.S. Trade Representative, wants to delay the implementation of a China trade strategy. This strategy would address both protecting U.S. jobs as well as China’s behavior on global markets. This could include the introduction of new strategic tariffs.
According to a source familiar with the discussions, Yellen believes that some tariffs are not in America’s economic interests and will cost consumers regardless of inflation arguments.
The Chamber of Commerce is also lobbying Biden for a reduction in U.S. tariffs against China and to re-enter negotiations with foreign countries for free trade agreements.
In the meantime, Senator Josh Hawley (R.MO) wrote Tai to urge that the reduction of U.S. tariffs be a “misguided proposal” that would amount “strategic error” for the American economy as well as the nation’s workforce.
It would be a strategic mistake to cut tariffs at this moment. It would not only reward China for its latest deceit but it would also give them the green light to do it again in future,” Hawley wrote Tai.
J.D., the Ohio GOP Senate candidate, made a scathing attack on J.D. Vance criticized Biden officials, including Yellen, for trying to maintain their “managed fall” of the American economy through reducing U.S. tariffs against China.
“… Unfortunately, far too many Republicans, and of course the whole Democrat party who’s gotten wealthy off the way that we do business China, this was one of the things,” Vance stated. “… While managed decline is bad news for ordinary Americans, it can be quite good for those who have profited from the decline.
Already, the Biden administration has removed U.S. tariffs from more than 350 China products — a significant win for multinational corporations who have long outsourced manufacturing to China.
Between 2001 and 2018, U.S. trade with China has eliminated 3.7 millions American jobs — 2.8million of which were in American manufacturing. At least 50,000 American manufacturing facilities were closed during that time.
These massive job losses coincide with a growing U.S.-China trading deficit. The U.S. trade deficit against China was $6 billion in 1985, just before China joined the WTO. The U.S. trade deficit against China was more than $345 Billion in 2019.
