WASHINGTON—The White House has signaled that it intends to maintain tariffs on Chinese goods, despite mounting pressure from American businesses.
Her response came after the nation’s most influential business groups sent a letter to the administration demanding a reset in China trade relations.
In a letter addressed to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, the business groups said Beijing had met “important benchmarks and commitments” in the phase one trade agreement signed in early 2020.
“A worker-centered trade agenda should account for the costs that U.S. and Chinese tariffs impose on Americans here and at home, and remove tariffs that harm U.S. interests,” the letter stated.
The business groups include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the National Retail Federation, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Semiconductor Industry Association.
President Joe Biden has been “very clear that he thinks that a go-it-alone strategy is a losing one. We’re stronger when we work with our allies and unite the world’s GDP,” Psaki said.
The Biden administration has maintained tariffs on nearly $360 billion worth of Chinese goods that were enacted by former President Donald Trump. But the administration did launch a comprehensive review of the phase one agreement, including the tariffs.
Psaki said there’s still no timeline for the conclusion of the review process.
It’s unclear whether the Biden administration would lift the existing tariffs following its review.
Despite the phase one deal, the Trump administration had kept the tariffs to address China’s unfair trade policies, including intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers, government subsidies for domestic companies, and restricting foreign access to Chinese markets.
“My own personal view is that tariffs were not put in place on China in a way that was very thoughtful with respect to where there are problems and what is the U.S. interest,” she said.
Yellen called tariffs “taxes on consumers” and said, “In some cases, it seems to me what we did hurt American consumers, and the type of deal that the prior administration negotiated really didn’t address in many ways the fundamental problems we have with China.”
Trade experts say that the Biden administration won’t lift the tariffs without securing concessions from the regime in Beijing. They also express skepticism about whether the Chinese regime can truly commit to structural reforms to address long-term issues such as forced technology transfer and cyber theft.