US President Joe Biden may propose a modest relief package and drop some of the tariffs imposed against Chinese imports to combat inflation across the United States.
In a statement released by former deputy director at the National Economic Council, Clete Willems, Biden could roll back some Chinese tariffs.
“What we are expecting that the president is deciding on is a relatively modest list of potential tariff suspensions in order to fight inflation. Some of the reports indicate that it’s on the order of magnitude of about $10 billion out of over $360 billion that are currently being imposed on China,” Willems said on Wednesday.
During former president Donald Trump’s administration, Willems served as a top White House trade negotiator and recently he noted that Biden’s move is “likely to come together with other actions “that are perceived as tough on China” like a “potential new investigation into China’s industrial subsidies.”
“That’s really important for the Biden administration to manage things at home, so that they don’t get criticized by the China hawks for being weak,” said Willems, and added that he thinks, “we’re going to see some movement pretty soon.”
Just in May, the US president revealed that he could roll back some of the tariffs that the country imposed against Chinese imports to help control rising consumer prices in the U.S.
“We’re looking at what would have the most positive impact,” Biden said and declared that the administration is considering removing the tariffs which were currently under discussion.
“I want every American to know that I am taking inflation very seriously. The first cause of inflation is a once-in-a-century pandemic. Not only did it shut down our global economy, it threw supply chains and demand completely out of whack.” The president added.
Willems also claimed that the Biden administration “was interested in looking at rationalizing the list over a longer term horizon and making it more strategic” and added that “I think we’re going to see something relatively modest in the short term. But over the long term, what I’m hopeful is that this will lead to a process that tries to rationalize things more broadly and link them more closely to their supply chain objectives.”
