On Tuesday, President Biden said he was considering lifting some tariffs on Chinese goods to lower consumer prices as Americans are facing over 8% inflation rates, a 40-year high.
“We’re discussing that right now,” Biden said when asked if he was going to drop China tariffs. “We’re looking at what would have the most positive impact.”
Biden has maintained the Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods despite the fact that study after study has shown US companies and consumers are bearing the brunt of the cost.
Responding to Biden’s comments, China urged the president to lift the tariffs and end the trade war. “The data indicates that the trade war does nobody any good. It is time for the US government to reconsider and remove the tariffs as soon as possible,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday.
Zhao said that US exports to China have dropped to levels below the rate they were at before the trade war started in 2018. “There is no winner in a trade war or tariff war. The US’ unilateral tariffs imposed against China do not help us, nor do they benefit the US or the world,” he said.
Last week, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai began a review of 25% US tariffs on Chinese goods that were imposed under Section 310 of the Trade Act of 1974. Section 301 requires a review of tariffs every four years, during which US industries that benefit from the measures can ask for them to be extended.
Trump tried to fix what wasn’t broken. Time to reverse this failed policy.
Plenty was and still is broken. Including our iindustrial, technological and scientific policy. None of which could have possibly be fixed by ham fisted Trump tariffs.
Do you think Biden’s plan will be any better?
Watch and cry/laugh. He will so generously lift tariffs on trinkets he believes we crave and need for Christmas. But he will keep tariffs and restrictiins on export in semiconductors — in a laughable belief that the China’s tech growth would slow down and US will magically catch up. There is no magic. We have to identify key technologies vital to US strategic needs and focus R&D money to priority areas. Competition globally is good, and we cannot be better at everything globally and certainly not forwver.
Managing global growth and develooment, trade policies, and harmonizing domestic economic, technoligical and scientific development — requires a different skill sets and even fmdifferent institutional approach,
As it stands today — between ossified
governmental institutions and private sector chasing shortsightedly every cent — we have no tools to manage/coordinate.
Ham fisted aporoach is all we have.
Let us see. China will just smilingly rush to oblige after being blamed and punished for our economic and industrial shortcommungs? Blamed for being Chinese in South or East China Sea. And for many other global ills. Let us see how it flies.
Yes they WILL smilingly rush and oblige and withdraw counter tariffs and when Biden or anybody else reimpose those tariffs they will go back to punitive measures while building up their industry and entangling us capital so us capitalist class works for China to keep these tantrums within measures while us slowly sinks to its terminal decline.
He met no resistance from the left for his Tariffs, they were all eager to take it to China. It was one thing they seemed to all agree on.
Now he will Russia sanctions to lower oil prices
😂😂😂
Oh, to witness Bye-Done going begging to China!
And Venezuela!
I hope Xi and Maduro tell him to go piss up a tree!
If inflation and lack of necessities are what initiates a Revolution, I can handle it. As long as it’s French-style.
Ah yes, those studies by Pablo Fajgelbaum, Pinelopi Goldberg, etc. And by Moody’s Investor Service – definitely not speaking in their own interest there. And of course the New York Times.
I’m no “China hawk”, I have often posted about how ridiculous it is to claim that China would invade Taiwan, something they can’t and won’t do. And I acknowledge that China is playing its game, good for them. I also know what a foreign-investor council located in Hong Kong or Shanghai can tell you – that Chinese businessmen are ruthless. Your company gives something out of courtesy and they take it and scoff at you. They think the West is insane to give up its advantages, such as having its own production to rely on, but they are more than happy to exploit the stupidity.
Just like they exploit their own people with toxic waste thrown out on the industry floor so the workers walk in it and breathe in the fumes. Just like they make shoddy products crowding out those with higher prices, especially when it comes to store medicines and clothes brands, then to disappear if criticized and come back under a new name. I have heard from several Chinese what their workplaces are like, same as everything else in their society. You have “health inspectors” but they are easily bribed to stay away. Pretty women are expected to go out drinking with the managers, otherwise they’ll be pressured in various ways. Workers are regularly wounded – just like you hear every year about some explosion in a fireworks factory due to its lousy conditions. Or buildings falling down, burying people, when there’s an earthquake, because safety regulations aren’t followed. Again, inspectors are easily bribed, especially if the builder is a Party member. This is not a country whose practices should be spread.
And of course, they are more than happy to do industrial espionage with no response from the West. They demand that foreigners selling in China also build factories in China. Where are the studies showing that this “hurts the Chinese the most”? They don’t think it hurts them, they think it gives them jobs to place these demands. It’s incredible to them that Westerners don’t place the same demands on others. And with the foreign factories in place, it’s an easy thing to spy on the technology.
Yes, you’ll have to put up with a bit more expensive candles in your Christmas tree. I don’t have a “study” like the links above to answer with, I have the note by a former Japanese prime minister visiting the U.S., stunned that it was handing over its industrial production to China. A nation can’t survive without its own industry, he said. Something everyone knows but Americans aren’t allowed to think.
Without its own industry, the U.S. can’t find improvements in its now non-existent industry, and can never catch up again. Family fathers who used to make a good living working in the factory now have to flip burgers – which does keep them out of the unemployment statistics, so the politicians are happy. The winners are those at the top of the food chain, whose wealth has increased greatly the last few decades, while everyone else’s purchasing power is stagnant.
Sending your industries to China also means they have the political power that comes with controlling the production. But this is something we are never allowed to discuss, what this could mean at a future point.
Very well put!
Another thing to remember is that the Chinese companies get paid in US dollars, which then goes to the central bank in exchange for Yuan. The Chinese central bank gets stuck with all these US dollars, so they buy US treasuries. The USA takes the cash and plows it into their military industrial complex. China keeps the treasury bonds, which are fairly useless, at least in the short term. Economist Michael Hudson has written books on the issue.
So the USA thinks it’s is so smart, but in reality they have been losing their industrial strength since 1972. They think they can keep the empire alive with guns and currency, but by pushing production to China, China’s economy and influence has been slowly and incrementally increasing. More and more, it will demand payment in Yuan. If they can get to a position where they don’t have to buy US treasuries, the US will be in trouble. They will have to devalue the dollar and inflation will skyrocket.
Eventually, the only thing left of the US Empire will be its military.
“So the USA thinks it’s is so smart, but in reality they have been losing their industrial strength since 1972.”
Yes, so much so that the USA manufactures more today than it has at any point in its history.
And how many have decent union representation, Thomas?
Please read my comment about GM. The UAW has become so corrupt that Walter Reuther is spinning in his grave.
The decline of decent union representation was baked into the NLRA, which was written by Big Business and self-serving union bosses to protect the interests of both rather than the interests of workers.
You couldn’t be more right if you tried, Thomas,
The US economy has grown 1.2 to 23 trillion since 1972. That is over 20 times larger! In spite of this fact, the USA has fewer manufacturing jobs today than it did in 1972. Your stat is meaningless and ignores the obvious relative and alarming decline of manufacturing sector.
Yes, the US has fewer manufacturing jobs than it used to. And manufactures more stuff than it ever has.
Why?
For the same reason that 150 years ago 90% of Americans worked in agriculture, and now less than 2% do, even though the US produces more food now than it ever has — we keep getting better at making more stuff with lower inputs of human labor.
Which is also why we live in air-conditioned houses with large-screen TVs and 3,000 books on our Kindles now instead of in log cabins with candles to read the Bible by if we don’t feel like looking out the window for entertainment.
I think for one, we are run by international corporations that don’t care about US interests, only profits. Greed, is the reason why, because they can and we don’t have the power to stop them. Vote? I mean for who? They own the elections too. Anyone that does look out for the middle man, little guy, or the countries interests are blackballed by their own party if not the other. Which, now, both parties are run by extremists and idealists with no interest in the common good or middle. I think my friend, it’s the end of an age. A new world order, is finally, upon us. They have the technology they lacked to assume complete control , they have it now with smart phones, 5G and AI.
If you believe that Chinese factories are bad, then you never worked for General Motors, which my husband did for 35 years.
People died in that plant. Chains holding up enormous dies would break and guess what happened to the unfortunates standing beneath them. My husband’s job was to crawl around inside of dies as big as a house and repair them. He had one hand smashed in a machine that was supposed to have been turned off and literally required hundreds of stitches. It still isn’t right.
Then there was the asbestos cleanup. Men came in in hazmat suits and in the meantime employees were stationed nearby with zero protection from the asbestos dust.
Don’t tell me how well Amerikkka treats its workers. They’ll chew you up and spit you out, and be glad when you die so they don’t have to pay out a pension to you.
That is truly awful . The problem with Chinese factories is that they have even less safety standards and as a result can make things even cheaper. This is why we need international labour standards, especially health and safety standards. If a country does not meet the standards, then they should get tariffed and eventually blocked from trade. Our world leaders seem very eager to negotiate complex trade agreements to liberalize trade, but don’t think it’s necessary to create a level playing field. Competition cannot happen if there are different rules in different countries that impact on costs. The best way to protect workers is to ensure everyone is treated with respect, whether they work in Detroit or Guangzhou.
Thank you for your reply, Shadows.
The operative word in your post is “cheaper”. It doesn’t matter which country you work in; PROFIT is the name of the game, and thus the substandard working conditions for millions.
International labor standards is a wonderful idea that will unfortunately never happen…again, PROFITS.
Removing a 25% sales tax on a ton of imports will obviously help inflation. But all I see is talk, we’ll see if Biden follows through with any action.
The trade war have been a complete failure, we bought more stuff from China than before the tariffs with the the government taking in billions of tax revenue. And then we used it to subsidize farmers who were hurt by the counter tariffs. Nobody benefited except the government coffers.
People need to realize that no amount of tariffs will bring manufacturing back to the states. There will always be a cheaper country where manufacturing will move to, be it China , Vietnam, India, Indonesia. No sane company will pay $15 per hour for a manufacturing plant in America. Labor is always going to be cheaper overseas and they don’t have to deal with the mountain of red tape and unions here.
“What about if we just stop all world trade”? Well, first say goodbye to every electronic you are typing and viewing this on because China assembles literally ALL of the world’s electronics. And then say hello to 12,000% inflation on everything. We need to trade to survive as a nation.
Precisely. Years and years ago, a friend invented a very popular brand of cloth diaper. She had hoped to have it manufactured in the US, but the quotes she got would have made them insanely expensive. She chose a factory overseas, because she knew she could never sell her product at the price she would have to charge if they were made here.
And frankly, low-paying, repetitive, physically demanding manufacturing jobs ALREADY are hard to fill. Who do people think will work these factory jobs they want to bring back?
Oh, so Bye-Done is FINALLY ADMITTING that it’s HIS POLICIES that are driving inflation 😆
No worries for Slow Joe; high prices don’t affect him or other well-paid congresswhores. In the meantime, many of us are struggling to fill our gas tanks and wondering what to fix for dinner that won’t drain our checking accounts.
Enjoy the filet mignon that your chefs lovingly prepare for you, Bye-Done; I’m eating macaroni and cheese, meatless spaghetti and hot dogs.