Biden unwisely dons the mantle of ‘tariff man’

When asked at a news conference in Stockholm [earlier this week] whether they support the European Union following the United States in slapping punitive tariffs on Chinese electric cars, along with other high-tech and new energy products, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and the visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a clear answer — No.

“As far as tariffs are concerned, we are in agreement that it is a bad idea to dismantle global trade,” Kristersson told reporters on the second day of Scholz’s visit to Sweden.

Scholz noted that half of the EVs imported into Europe from China were produced by Western manufacturers, including US EV makers, hinting that considerable parts of the raised tariffs will be paid by Western companies and consumers.

Yet that has not deterred Biden who has done a full 180 on tariffs. Back in 2019, Biden slammed then US president Donald Trump’s move to impose tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports.

“Trump doesn’t get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China,” Biden said at the time. “Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.” Then in 2020, while campaigning for the White House, Biden vowed to remove Trump’s tariffs if elected.

Now Biden has not only maintained most of the broad-based tariffs from the Trump-era that he was once highly critical of, but also added to them. Touting it as a “smart approach” that precisely targets the products of a selected few industries in which he is “determined to ensure America leads the world”.

His trade representative was left racking her brain to try and justify Biden’s apparent reversal on the tariffs at a White House news conference on Tuesday.

That US Trade Representative Katherine Tai denied the aforementioned side effects of the China-related tariffs, which she once cited as reasons to press the Biden administration to reexamine and cancel the Trump tariffs, is a telling sign that the Biden administration has introduced the new tariffs for its own political gains.

The US National Retail Federation was more forthcoming, calling on Biden to repeal the tariffs, arguing that “as consumers continue to battle inflation, the last thing the administration should be doing is placing additional taxes on imported products that will be paid by US importers and eventually US consumers”.

The reason why Biden has maintained the Trump tariffs and introduced new ones is because he cannot afford to show weakness on China-related issues ahead of the election. But his miscalculation on that is evident. Trump drew scorn in 2018, after declaring, “I am a tariff man.” Biden now looks like one too, and he has thrown himself into a pit dug by Trump only to lift the latter out of it.

Editorial, China Daily