WASHINGTON — President Biden will announce plans for a new 15% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum as he campaigns for votes in Pittsburgh on Wednesday — resuming former President Donald Trump’s trade war with Beijing after a three-year lull.
Biden administration officials announced the move in a press call with reporters — saying China was poised to flood the US market with cheap steel and aluminum, undercutting American manufacturers.
“China’s policy-driven overcapacity poses a serious risk to the future of the American steel and aluminum industry,” one official said.
“In manufacturing sectors like steel, China’s already producing more than China or the world can easily absorb. China’s subsidies and other forms of support lead to exports flooding global markets at artificially low prices, undercutting American steel.”
Biden has kept in place most of Trump’s tariffs ahead of their impending election rematch in November — including Trump’s 25% tariff on steel and 10% tariff on aluminum from most countries, which was imposed in 2018 under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
Trump imposed other tariffs on China under an authority known as Section 301 — with tariffs between 7.5% and 25% still in effect under Biden on an array of Chinese goods comprising roughly $362 billion of annual imports, or more than half of the overall volume from China.
The former president’s escalation with China was part of a plan to force a grand new trade pact to improve US standing, which stalled when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, just two months after Trump and the Chinese government agreed to a “Phase One” bundle of reforms.
Biden’s plans for more sanctions on Chinese metals come as he stumps for votes in steel-producing Pennsylvania, which Trump narrowly carried in 2016 by vowing to change trade relations to benefit domestic industry.
The state is expected to be one of just a handful that tips the balance between Trump and Biden this year.
Republicans have accused Biden of being too soft on China on a variety of issues, including stopping exports of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans since Biden took office as it’s increasingly cut into non-opioid drugs and phony prescriptions.
Biden’s additional 15% tariff on Chinese steel and aluminum under Section 301 would be implemented following a formal review of the Trump-era tariffs.
“The current average tariff on steel and aluminum is 7.5% under Section 301,” the White House said in a fact sheet, which says that Biden “is calling on the US [Trade Representative Katherine Tai] to consider tripling the existing 301 tariff rate on Chinese steel and aluminum.”