Politico | Joe Biden won’t rule out new US tariffs, adviser says
- Aide Tony Blinken adds, however, that Biden White House would use improved relations with EU and other allies to pursue ‘reset’ of relations with China
- He says Trump’s tariffs ‘fake toughness’ and ‘harm our own people’
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Gavin Bade on politico.com on September 22, 2020.
A top trade adviser to former vice-president Joe Biden says the candidate is not ruling out new tariffs on imports but would also look to reconcile with allies burned by Trump’s trade wars.
“We would use tariffs when they’re needed, but backed by a strategy and a plan,” Tony Blinken, a former deputy secretary of state in the Obama White House, said during a video chat hosted by the Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday morning.
Blinken contrasted Biden’s approach with the unilateral tariffs Trump has imposed on China and allies like Europe and Canada, saying those tariffs “fake toughness” and “harm our own people”.
He stopped short of outlining any red lines that would result in a Biden administration imposing new import duties, saying only that the new team would “aggressively enforce American trade laws any time foreign cheating poses a threat to American jobs”.
Blinken also did not rule out a return to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal negotiated by Obama’s White House and abandoned by Trump. But he reiterated the campaign’s position that any new trade pact would come after “major” domestic infrastructure investments.