US keeping tariffs on Chinese imports till Beijing opens up economy, trade representative says
- ‘Until the day that China chooses a path to have its economy operate more like ours’, effective punitive tools are needed, says Katherine Tai
- US stays competitive through tariffs and initiatives like Chips Act boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing, she adds
“Until the day that China chooses a path to have its economy operate more like ours … we need to have more effective tools in ensuring that we can continue to compete and we can continue to allow our economy to thrive along the principles that our economy is built on,” she added.
Chinese exporters, strengthened by US tariffs, now face a dearth of demand
However, Biden did not end up discussing his plans for the tariffs. The US president instead brought up his “core concerns with China’s unfair economic practices, which harm American workers and harm American families”, according to a senior White House official who briefed journalists after the meeting.
Biden and Tai have often pointed to traditional trade liberalisation benefiting limited swathes of the US population as their main justification for avoiding trade agreements. It was a concern Trump emphasised in his campaign for the White House in 2016.
The CPTPP is a later iteration of a multilateral trade pact that Trump pulled the US out of soon after he took office in 2017.
Tai on Wednesday continued to defend her approach as “a search for a new paradigm”.
“We as the United States need to be at the cutting edge of figuring out how … we deploy these more traditional tools that we have, including trade liberalisation, but to harness them to serve a larger purpose around resilience,” she said.
Tai added that “sustainability with respect to our planet and also the treatment of our people in our workers in the global economy” were priorities for the Office of the US Trade Representative.