The president of the United States, Joe Bidenwill be launched against China's economy because this Wednesday will propose drastically increasing tariffs on steel and aluminum importsThis was revealed by White House officials.
Through a speech that will be made from the headquarters of the steel union in Pittsburgh, President Biden will ask the director of Foreign Trade, Katherine Tai, to analyze the possibility of increase the tariff from 7.5 percent to 25 percent.
This is not the first time that the United States has attacked China's economy, because during Donald Trump's government a 25 percent tax was imposed on steel imports and a 10 percent tax on aluminum.
Unfortunately The increase in taxes would also impact the US economybecause they could reduce the demand for steel by 0.6 percent, as explained by an official for The Wall Street Journal.
But China's government subsidies and programs allow Steel prices up to 40 percent lower compared to the United States, so the Biden administration is concerned that this will lead to a substantial increase in Chinese exports.
For her part, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen expressed concern because China's government subsidies are generating supply that exceeds demand of clean energy products and this displaces competition by reducing prices, as he considered last week during his visit to China.
Biden held phone call with Xi
Joe Biden held a conversation with Xi Jinpingwas the first call between the two leaders since July 2022 and the first since the meeting they held in November of last year in San Francisco and on the sidelines of the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC).
Biden's goal, according to the White House, was to “do a check-in” with Xi in an attempt to keep the two powers in contact and prevent an incident from leading to an crisis with unpredictable consequences.
The Chinese government also considered the call as positive for global stability, although Xi made clear his discomfort with the restrictions that Biden has imposed on the export of American technology to China for the development of artificial intelligence or in the area of semiconductors.
Xi warned Biden that his government “is not reducing risks but creating them” with its technological restrictions and warned that China “will not sit idly by” if Washington insists on continuing to suppress the “legitimate right to development.”