Biden considers lifting China tariffs slapped by Trump
US President Joe Biden has been mulling over lifting Trump-era tariffs slapped on Chinese imports while concerns over midterms elections loom.
Biden wants to show that he is doing all he can to fight record inflation without appearing soft on China in the run-up to the midterm elections, according to The Hill.
On one hand, lifting the China tariffs is one of the only options at Biden’s disposal to try to lower the price of everyday goods.
On the other hand, lifting the tariffs would have very little impact on decreasing the costs of food and fuel, experts say.
Also, labor unions support for the China tariffs is another key factor for Biden, who on the campaign trail vowed to be the most pro-labor president in US history.
In addition, experts say lifting China tariffs ahead of his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which is expected to take place this month, would be politically and strategically risky and make Biden look weak in eyes of Beijing as well as the American voters making it a perilous move ahead of November’s midterm elections.
In order to simultaneously appease both the White House advisers and the potential midterm voters, Biden is expected to lift China tariffs on a relatively tiny fraction of the imports: as little as $10 billion worth of Chinese products out of the roughly $350 billion in goods slapped with tariffs by the former president, Trump.
“You have some Cabinet officials who don’t want to do anything that’s seen as helping China in any way, and you’ve got others concerned more with the economy, saying that tariffs haven’t really achieved any strategic objective,” said David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “So this seems like a compromise, but it’s weighted very much toward mostly keeping the tariffs.”
Microsoft fires employees for organizing vigil for Gaza victims
Divestment success in US
US budget deficit widens to $1.8 trillion, third highest on record
US surgeon haunted by Gaza children with ‘single gunshot wounds to head’
VIDEO | Fatal Harvest: Escalating attacks on Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank
Hamas rejects temporary truce offer, calls for complete ceasefire in Gaza
Iran among top nuclear technology countries: AEOI chief
Democrats 'risk losing' election for backing Israeli war on Gaza, Lebanon: US journalist
Protesters remove busts of Israel's first president from Manchester Univ.
VIDEO | Hezbollah drones
US involvement in Israel’s 'regional war' unconstitutional, lawmakers tell Biden
PressTV NEWSLETTER
now
This makes it easy to access the Press TV website
