US doubles down on Chinese tech tariffs

US President Joe Biden has announced a major tariff increase on a broad range of Chinese technology goods, including electric vehicles (EVs), semiconductors and lithium-ion batteries. “The President’s action today is a part of his vision to rebuild our supply chains and our ability to make things in America to lower costs, outcompete the People’s Republic of China and encourage the elimination of practices that undercut American workers and businesses. We’re doing that by investing in manufacturing and clean energy here at home and raising tariffs to protect these investments,” US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a press briefing following the announcement.

Duties on EVs are set to quadruple to 100 percent later this year, those on semiconductors will double to 50 percent and batteries will see an increase from 7.5 to 25 percent. Other Chinese imports the US aims to discourage include solar cells (50 percent tariff), graphite (25 percent), other critical minerals (25 percent), permanent magnets (25 percent) and steel and aluminum (25 percent). The tariffs targeting 18 billion dollars worth of imports annually will come into effect over the next three years.