President Joe Biden is increasing tariffs on $18 billion in Chinese imports across a handful of sectors deemed strategic to national security – an attempt to cripple Beijing’s development of critical technologies and instead prioritize US production.
The increases will apply to imported steel and aluminum, legacy semiconductors, electric vehicles, battery components, critical minerals, solar cells, cranes and medical products. The new tariff rates – which range from 100% on electric vehicles, to 50% for solar components, to 25% for all other sectors – will take place over the next two years.
“China’s using the same playbook it has before to power its own growth at the expense of others,” said Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council. “China’s simply too big to play by its own rules.”
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