U.S. to Announce New Tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles

The administration could raise tariffs on electric vehicles from China to 100 percent in an attempt to protect American auto manufacturers.

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An car factory in China. The Biden administration is expected to raise tariffs in order to make it prohibitively expensive to buy Chinese electric vehicles.

The Biden administration is set to announce new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and other goods as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter, as President Biden looks for ways to protect America’s nascent clean energy sector from a surge of cheap Chinese imports.

The move comes amid growing concern within the administration that Mr. Biden’s efforts to jump-start domestic manufacturing of clean energy products could be undercut by China, which has been flooding global markets with cheap solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles and other products.

The long-awaited tariffs are the result of a four-year review of the levies that former President Donald J. Trump imposed on more than $300 billion of Chinese imports in 2018. Most of the Trump tariffs are expected to remain in place, but Mr. Biden plans to go beyond those by raising levies in areas that the president showered with subsidies in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

That includes Chinese electric vehicles, which currently face a 25 percent tariff. The administration is expected to raise that to a much higher rate in order to make it prohibitively expensive to buy a Chinese EV. The administration has been considering tariffs as high as 100 percent, according to a person familiar with the deliberations.

Mr. Biden took steps earlier this year to block internet-connected Chinese cars and trucks from entry to the American auto market, including electric vehicles, saying they posed risks to national security because their operating systems could send sensitive information to Beijing.

The president is looking to ratchet up pressure on China and demonstrate his willingness to protect American manufacturing ahead of his face-off against Mr. Trump in the November presidential election.

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