{"id":1031,"date":"2021-01-26T18:44:59","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T02:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2021-01-26T18:44:59","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T02:44:59","slug":"biden-administration-must-maintain-tariffs-on-chinese-goods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/general\/biden-administration-must-maintain-tariffs-on-chinese-goods\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Administration Must Maintain Tariffs on Chinese Goods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During\nhis campaign, Biden laid out his economic agenda<\/a> for the\ncountry, called “Build Back Better, which includes a $700 billion\ninvestment in procurement and research and development for new technologies\nsuch as biotech, clean energy and artificial intelligence.”  The goal is that \u201cthe new plan will help\ncreate 5 million new jobs.\u201d  As Vice\nPresident under President Obama, Biden<\/a> advocated\nengagement with China, but changed his tune during the campaign, \u201ccalling\nChinese President Xi Jinping a “thug. ” While he repeatedly\ncriticized \u201cTrump’s trade and tariff war with China as being ineffective and\nfailing to protect the US economy,\u201d the Biden Administration must maintain the\nsteel and aluminum tariffs order to have any hope of achieving his goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his Jan. 19th<\/sup> confirmation\nhearing, Biden\u2019s incoming secretary of state, Antony Blinken<\/a>, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:\n\u201cPresident Trump was right in taking a tougher approach to China. I disagree\nvery much with the way that he went about it in a number of areas, but the\nbasic principle was the right one. And I think that that\u2019s actually helpful to\nour foreign policy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An\narticle in The\nBalance<\/a> reported that the U.S. trade deficit with\nChina was $315.1 billion in 2012, rose to $367.3 billion by 2015 before\ndropping to $346.8 billion the next year. By 2018, it had increased to $418.9\nbillion, before falling to $345.2 billion in 2019.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big\ndrop was partly due to the 25% tariff on steel imports that President\nTrump enacted on top of a 10% tariff previously leveraged on aluminum. The\ntariffs went into effect on July 6, 2018, impacting $34 billion worth of\nChinese imports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article reported that \u201cThe U.S.\ntrade deficit<\/a> with China<\/a> for\n2020 was $283.6 billion as of November of that year. That’s 18% less than\n2019’s $345.2 billion deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\narticle explained that \u201cThe trade deficit exists because U.S. exports<\/a> to\nChina were only $110 billion while imports from China were $393.6 billion.\nThe biggest categories of U.S. imports from China are typically computers; cell\nphones; apparel; and toys, games, and sporting goods.2?? A lot\nof these imports are from U.S. manufacturers that send raw materials to China\nfor low-cost assembly. Once shipped back to the United States, they are\nconsidered imports.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\nsame vein, Reuters<\/a>\nreported that the U. S. trade deficit narrowed in 2019 for the first time in\nsix years, stating \u201cAt the height of the U.S.-China trade war last\nyear, Washington slapped tariffs on billions worth of Chinese goods, including\nconsumer products, thumping imports<\/strong>. The politically sensitive goods\ntrade deficit with China plunged 17.6% to $345.6 billion in 2019 \u201c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November 17, 2020, <\/em>IndustryWeek<\/a>\npublished an opinion article by Jeff Ferry, chief economist at the <\/em>Coalition for a\nProsperous America<\/em><\/a>. \nFerry wrote \u201c<\/em>it\u2019s clear that the Trump administration\u2019s\nsteel tariffs have generated a boom in steel investment and a shift to newer\ntechnologies that are creating high-paying jobs for thousands of new\nsteelworkers\u2026The steel tariffs have succeeded by reducing the level of these\nimports in the U.S. This has allowed domestic steel producers to make needed\ninvestments while taking the industry forward with confidence.\u201d  He cited that \u201cU.S. Steel Corporation\nproduced the first ton of steel at a brand-new facility in Fairfield, Alabama,\n\u201cNucor Steel has started building a new steel plate mill in Brandenburg,\nKentucky, that will employ 400 workers at an average annual salary of $72,800,\u201d\nand \u201cCommercial Metals Company announced plans to build a second rebar steel\nmill in Mesa, Arizona, that will employ 185 workers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted that \u201cWith steel imports down, America\u2019s steelmakers\nhave started investing at home. In addition to Nucor and US Steel, companies like\nCleveland-Cliffs, Steel Dynamics, CMC, and AK Steel have invested billions of\ndollars in at least 16 major new projects throughout the nation. The top five\nUS steel companies more than doubled their total annual investments between\n2017 to 2019, from $1.5 billion to $4.2 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s been great that the 25% tariffs on steel have saved our\ncritical American steel industry, but the tariffs have not been high enough to\nbenefit most of the manufacturers in the parts producing domestic supply\nchain.  As a sales representative for American\nmanufacturers that produce molded and other fabricated mechanical parts, we\nsometimes get feedback on quotes we lose showing that we would need tariffs of\nbetween 200 \u2013 300% to be able to compete with Chinese prices, especially for\nmolded rubber and plastic parts. \nSometimes, the finished part price is less than or equal to the prices\nfor the material used to make these parts. Our industry would love for tariffs\nto be higher and across the board on all products produced in China and\nimported to the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I\nwrote in my last article<\/a> of\n2020, tariffs have helped manufacturers return to the U.S. through\nreshoring.  We gained business in 2019\nand 2020 from companies returning metal fabrication from China to the U.S.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an article<\/a> on January\n22, 2021, \u201cBiden\u2019s Team Could Be as Hawkish on China as Trump\u2019s, Kenneth\nRapoza, CPA Industry Analyst, wrote: \u201cThe Trump Administration got China right.\nIt set the table on China going forward, changing the age-old establishment\ncenterpiece of waiting for allies to okay things following one diplomatic\nmeeting after the next. Lighthizer, Peter Navarro, Wilbur Ross and Trump\nhimself took action, and showed that tariffs on China do not mean prices will\nrise across the board. The stock market didn\u2019t collapse because of the trade\nwar. There seems to be good momentum on China.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nurge the Biden Administration to keep up the momentum on reducing our trade\ndeficit with China and increasing higher-paying manufacturing jobs by\nmaintaining or expanding tariffs on Chinese imported goods. To appease his\n\u201cGreen Deal\u201d followers, he could call the tariffs \u201cGreenhouse Gas Emission\nfees\u201d because China\u2019s manufacturers depend on polluting coal-fired power plants\ndue to lack of environmental regulations like we have in the U.S. Many American\npower plants use cleaner-burning natural gas. \nThe welfare of our economy and our national security depend on using\nevery tactic we have available to thwart China\u2019s goal of becoming the world\u2019s\nsuperpower of the 21st<\/sup> Century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During his campaign, Biden laid out his economic agenda for the country, called “Build Back Better, which includes a $700 billion investment in procurement and research and development for new technologies such as biotech, clean energy and artificial intelligence.”  The goal is that \u201cthe new plan will help create 5 million new jobs.\u201d  As Vice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[78,267,243],"class_list":["post-1031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-american-manufacturers","tag-tariffs","tag-u-s-trade-deficit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1032,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions\/1032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}