Biden Will Raise Tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles, Chips and Other Goods

The president is set to announce increased taxes on Chinese imports in strategic industries, building on former President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs.

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President Biden will quadruple tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to 100 percent as part of a bigger push to thwart China’s ambitions to dominate clean energy technologies.

President Biden will announce on Tuesday that he is raising tariffs on an array of Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, solar cells, semiconductors and advanced batteries, in what he calls an effort to protect strategic American industries from a new wave of competitors that are unfairly subsidized by Beijing.

The president will also officially endorse maintaining tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese goods that were put in place by President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Biden criticized those tariffs as taxes on American consumers during his 2020 run for the White House.

Mr. Biden’s moves are the latest trade-war escalation from a president who initially pledged to repeal at least some of the Trump tariffs but now refuses to cede any ground to his rival in a tough-on-China appeal to swing voters in the industrial Midwest and beyond.

They also reflect Mr. Biden’s efforts to build on Mr. Trump’s consensus-defying trade confrontation with China while focusing it on sectors of strategic importance to the United States, like clean energy and semiconductors.

The increased tariffs will apply to about $18 billion worth of annual imports from China, White House officials said. The biggest increase will be the quadrupling of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to 100 percent from 25 percent. That move is aimed at shielding a corner of the American automotive industry that is in line to receive hundreds of billions of dollars in federal subsidies to help the United States transition to a clean energy future.

Mr. Biden is betting on his efforts to use government investments in heavy manufacturing, including electric vehicles and other green technologies, to create middle-class jobs and help win the swing states that are home to parts of those industries. Biden aides nodded to the politics of trade before the announcement, singling out states they expected to benefit from the tariffs.

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