WASHINGTON – The Biden administration plans to raise tariffs electric vehicles and other clean energy products From China Next week, according to people familiar with the matter.
According to the sources, the tariff rate for Chinese electric vehicles will be increased nearly fourfold, from 25% to nearly 100%. They also said the price hike would apply to Chinese batteries and solar panels — two areas the Biden administration has invested in domestically.
Administration officials plan to make the announcement Tuesday, though the timing could change.
The White House declined to comment.
The planned tariff increase was the first informed By the Wall Street Journal.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen heads to a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Italy this month as the US hopes to coordinate similar actions from other countries to present a coordinated front to China.
In an interview this week Market placeYellen was asked if the US is losing competition to China in terms of electric cars and batteries.
“We don’t think the playing field is level,” Yellen responded. “And we think China is massively subsidizing investment in this industrial complex that they are targeting as critical to their growth prospects.”
For nearly two years, the United States has faced backlash from its allies to downgrade their green energy economies. Inflation Reduction Act President Joe Biden signed the law. Many of those allies have since created their own versions of the IRA to compete — and now they’re trying to present a united front on a mutual adversary: China.
Last month, Biden called China has tripled tariffs on steel and aluminum When I spoke to union members on the battlefield in Pennsylvania. In a speech in Pittsburgh, the president said China produces too much to export to the United States, driving down prices and hurting the American economy because high-quality U.S. products must compete with artificially low-cost alternatives.
“The Chinese government has been pouring public money into Chinese steel companies for a very long time, encouraging them to produce as much steel as possible, subsidized by the Chinese government,” Biden said. “They don’t compete. They are cheating. They are cheating. And we saw the damage in America.”
There is former President Donald Trump said he would review it A 60% tariff on all Chinese imports if elected in November. During his administration, the US imposed new tariffs on washing machines, solar panels, steel, aluminum and billions of dollars worth of goods from China. Biden kept most of Trump’s Chinese tariffs unchanged.