Biden urges threefold increase in Chinese steel tariffs during outreach to Pennsylvania union members

President Joe Biden called for tripling the tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum, a policy proposal timed for his meeting with union workers in Pennsylvania on Wednesday.

While speaking before the United Steelworkers union, Biden will call upon U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to triple the tariffs from their average level of 7.5%.

A White House fact sheet said the administration “recognizes growing concerns that unfair Chinese trade practices, including flooding the market with below-market-cost steel, are distorting the global shipbuilding market and eroding competition.”

The announcement is set to come during a presidential visit in a key swing state with a notable union and manufacturing base. Unions are typically supportive of higher tariffs.

Tariffs are billed by supporters as a means to narrow the trade deficit and support domestic manufacturing jobs. They’re also advertised as safeguarding the country’s supply chains, which, as the pandemic exposed, are often reliant on foreign nations for critical goods, such as medicines and certain critical minerals.

Opponents say they hamper free trade and can cause prices to spiral at a time when inflation is already buffeting U.S. households.

Former President Donald Trump raised steel and aluminum tariffs when he was in office as competition between the U.S. and China heated up. He also imposed a wide range of tariffs on China, many of which the Biden administration kept in place.

But Trump has proposed an even more expansive tariff regime than Biden and not just against countries like China. He has even raised the notion of 10% across-the-board tariffs.

But many in Trump’s party would undoubtedly call such a move foolhardy and inflationary. The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan group that generally prefers lower taxes, estimated that the Trump 10% tariff plan would shrink the U.S. economy by 1.1% and threaten more than 825,000 U.S. jobs if trade partners retaliated in kind.

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Biden was also in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and addressed tax policy during a visit to his hometown of Scranton. Biden has proposed several tax hikes, but few have been made into law as he faced resistance from Republicans and even some in his own party.

During the Tuesday visit, Biden argued to voters that Trump wants to cut taxes for the wealthiest people, while his tax vision is focused on raising taxes on high earners and corporations.