Punish China, create US jobs: trade envoy defends Joe Biden’s retention of Donald Trump-era tariffs

Katherine Tai sees ‘strategic value’ in duties while bolstering American middle class and reinvigorating stateside manufacturing and domestic economy

Tariffs and laws championed by Biden administration touted amid creation of ‘close to a million’ manufacturing jobs since 2021

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Katherine Tai has served as the US trade representative since the start of the Biden administration in 2021. Photo: Reuters

Published: 5:31am, 13 Feb 2024Updated: 6:21am, 13 Feb 2024

Joe Biden’s top trade official on Monday defended the administration’s decision to leave in place punitive tariffs on imports from China, arguing they have complemented other efforts by the US president to boost the number of domestic manufacturing jobs.

When asked about a recent study suggesting tariffs did not yield such employment, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the extra duties on Chinese goods enacted by former president Donald Trump plus tariffs he slapped on steel and aluminium imports more broadly had helped bolster the Biden administration’s job-creation initiatives.

“We have kept a lot of the tariffs because we see strategic value in those tariffs in this exercise of building out the middle class and reinvigorating American manufacturing and the American economy” Tai said at the Council on Foreign Relations during a discussion with former USTR Michael Froman.

The tariffs have had more of an impact since the enactment of three laws championed by the Biden administration – the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips and Science Act – she added, saying “close to a million” manufacturing jobs had been created since Biden took office.

Data from the US Bureau of Labour Statistics showed that manufacturing employment increased by more than 750,000 positions since Biden became president in January 2021.