President Joe Biden will call for a tripling of steel tariffs from China to protect U.S. producers from cheap imports, an announcement he will make Wednesday as he takes steelworkers in Pennsylvania to justice.
He will make the announcement in a battleground critical to his re-election campaign, and his pitch will be aimed at an industry angry about the planned purchase of US Steel by a Japanese company.
It’s also a move designed to antagonize his Republican rival.
President Biden will announce increased tariffs on China in a speech to American steelworkers
Donald Trump has imposed broad tariffs on China as president and has threatened to do even more if he gets another term in the White House.
Now both men have spoken about how they will counter China as they cast their ballots to voters for a second term, especially when speaking to the workers who could decide November’s election.
Biden is pushing for an economic plan to combat inflation, which has driven up the cost of food, goods and gas across the country. Voters have given him low marks for his handling of the economy.
Trump, meanwhile, is reminding voters that the economy was stronger under his term.
“If a country is just ripping us off, like China, then I thought the tariffs, and the tariffs, forced companies to come back to the United States,” Trump told CNBC in March.
This week, Biden is in the middle of a three-day campaign in Pennsylvania, which began Tuesday in Scranton and includes a visit to Philadelphia on Thursday.
As part of his announcement on Wednesday, Biden will ask U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to raise tariffs to 25 percent on certain Chinese products — including aluminum and steel — that face tariffs of 7.5 percent or no tariffs at all, administration officials said.
Moreover, he will repeat his opposition to the proposed sale of US Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel.
“It is important that US Steel remains a domestic company,” a senior administration official told reporters on Tuesday.
‘The president will make that clear again. He told the steelworkers he will stand with them, and he means it.”
At a rally last weekend in Pennsylvania, Trump attacked Biden over Nippon Steel’s efforts to buy US Steel, ignoring Biden’s objections to the merger.
“I wouldn’t let that deal go through,” Trump said.
Biden will reiterate his opposition to the sale of US Steel to a Japanese company – over US Steel’s Mon Valley Works Clairton plant in Clairton, Pennsylvania.
Donald Trump has also promised to raise tariffs on China if he is re-elected
Biden will also announce an investigation into China’s aggressive support of shipbuilders and other related industries, which unions have complained about. And he will announce an initiative to work with Mexico to prevent China from dodging U.S. steel tariffs by routing its exports through that country.
Biden has worked to thaw relations with Beijing, which became tense under Trump. He met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November. And he has sent his senior government officials to visit the country.
However, China is working to counter its own economic downturn. The country’s exports, which receive subsidies from Beijing amid the country’s cheap labor market, have helped boost the economy to higher-than-expected growth.
Last week in Beijing, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen voiced government concerns that overcapacity in Chinese manufacturing would push more goods into global markets at artificially lower prices, potentially stifling competition.
“When markets weaken, prices fall and it is our companies that go bankrupt, and our allies too,” she said on Tuesday. “Chinese companies continue to receive support to help them stay.”
And the Biden administration wants to make it clear that it is standing up for American workers.
“China’s policy-driven overcapacity poses a serious risk to the future of the U.S. steel and aluminum industries,” Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters on a briefing call on Tuesday.
“China cannot export its way to recovery. China is simply too big to play by its own rules.”