President Joe Biden didn’t offer a reason for not extending tariff exclusions on thousands of items imported from China, Nasdaq reported. The U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) said that keeping many tariffs (taxes) in place on Chinese goods will negatively impact American companies and consumers, adding substantial costs to products.
Although Biden spoke against stiff Trump-era tariffs during his campaign, his recent action waived these taxes on just 352 categories, far short of what had been requested.
“We know that the tariffs are a tax on U.S. businesses and consumers, that they haven’t influenced China’s behavior — which was the purported justification — they likely contribute to domestic inflation, and they negatively affect U.S. companies of all sizes, especially many smaller businesses that struggle to survive after more than two years of a pandemic,” USCBC President Craig Allen said in a release issued Thursday. “The tariffs should be eliminated. They serve no useful purpose or policy goal.”
U.S.-China Business Council President Craig Allen
| U.S.-China Business Council
Douglas Barry, the USCBC vice president for communications and publications, told Globe Banner there was no obvious reason why just 352 categories received exclusions out of the requested 549 categories. There were a total of 53,000 requests for exclusions from the tariffs imposed during the Trump Administration. Biden’s decision lifts the tariff on less than 7,000.
“We don’t understand the process for what’s included or excluded,” Barry said. “One criteria is the availability of the product from other sources. There has not been the level of business and industry input that we have requested.”
The USCBC said tariffs of approximately 20% will remain on thousands of Chinese items brought to the USA. Many of them are intermediate goods used to produce a final product.
In 2018 and 2019, Trump imposed punitive 301 tariffs ranging from 7.5% to 25% on a wide range of Chinese imports, estimated to total $370 billion in 2018 and 2019, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).
Trump said he did so because of unfair trading practices and intellectual property theft, while China considered the tariffs an attempt to slow its economic growth.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden was an outspoken opponent of the tariffs, calling them “damaging, reckless and disastrous” and said they harmed farmers and families in the United States, BBC News reported. However, he later backtracked on some of those statements, according to CNBC.
On Wednesday, his administration failed to lift tariffs on thousands of items and products that come from China, Reuters reported.
Under an “exclusion process,” importers and manufacturers are permitted to petition the USTR to exempt certain products imported from China from the Section 301 tariffs.
In its release, the USCBC encouraged the USTR to “articulate a clear process and criteria to evaluate requests for tariff exclusions.” It called on the creation of a comprehensive exclusion request program to allow importers to request relief.
Barry said continuing these tariffs will continue to hurt Americans.
“It’s causing serious harm to their business which employs American workers, many who are older and lack significant formal education,” he told Globe Banner. “The policy is illogical and self-defeating.”
The USCBC’s stance is supported by 250 members of Congress who have asked for a review of the exclusion process on a bicameral, bipartisan basis. But Barry said he doubts there will be significant change at this time.
“Given the current politics in Washington, we’re not optimistic that the policy will change in the foreseeable future,” he said.
The U.S.-China Business Council, founded in 1973, is a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization of over 260 American companies that do business with China. Founded in 1973, USCBC has provided unmatched information, advisory, advocacy and program services to its members for over four decades. It maintains offices in Washington, D.C., Beijing and Shanghai.
“USCBC’s mission is to expand the U.S.-China commercial relationship to the benefit of its membership and, more broadly, the U.S. economy,” its website states. “It favors constructive, results-oriented engagement with China to eliminate trade and investment barriers and develop a rules-based commercial environment that is predictable and transparent to all parties.”