Joe Biden announced plans to triple tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum and promised to block the acquisition of US Steel by a Japanese company during a speech to steelworkers on Wednesday in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where union support could prove crucial in the November general election.
Biden touted the plan during a visit to the United Steelworkers union headquarters in Pittsburgh, the heart of the American steel industry, where he said “the backbone of America has a steel spine” and promised to keep US Steel as a “totally American-owned, American-operated” company.
The Biden administration is reviewing a proposed $14.9bn acquisition of US Steel, once the world’s largest company and which played a key role in the nation’s industrialization, by Japan’s Nippon Steel. Biden said last month he would oppose the deal.
As he was greeted by a small group of steelworkers upon his arrival in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, one shouted: “Keep US Steel in America!” Biden responded: “Guaranteed.” A large group of protesters gathered across the street, one group chanting “Bidenomics has got to go” and another yelling “Ceasefire now!”
During his speech, the president called on his trade representative to consider tripling the existing 7.5% tariff rate on Chinese steel and aluminum imports, a move the White House said was aimed at protecting American jobs against “unfair” competition.
“For too long, the Chinese government has poured state money into Chinese steel companies that produce more steel than China needs, and end up dumping extra steel on the global markets with unfairly low prices,” Biden said on Wednesday. “That’s not competing, that’s cheating, and we’ve seen the damage here in America.”
The US will work with Mexico to ensure that Chinese firms cannot avoid American steel tariffs by shipping via Mexican ports, Biden said. He also announced a new investigation by his trade representative into Chinese subsidies for its shipbuilding industry. “I’m not looking for a fight with China,” he said. “I’m looking for competition, but fair competition.”
The administration has accused China of distorting markets and hurting the US economy by flooding the market with artificially low-priced steel. “The president understands we must invest in American manufacturing. But we also have to protect those investments and those workers from unfair exports associated with China’s industrial overcapacity,” Lael Brainard, the White House national economic adviser, told reporters.
Biden is on a three-day campaign-trail swing through Pennsylvania, a crucial battleground state that he narrowly won in 2020. He visited with union workers in his childhood hometown of Scranton on Tuesday and will visit Philadelphia on Thursday.
The trip is part of a broader effort to draw contrasts with his opponent, former president Donald Trump, who first put into place broad tariffs on Chinese goods and who has repeatedly floated the idea of imposing a 10% tariff on all US imports as well as a tariff of up to 60% on Chinese imports if he is elected in November.
Trump’s proposals would “badly hurt” American consumers and cost the average American family an average of $1,500 a year, Biden warned. In response, the Trump campaign said Biden had spent his entire career “betraying” working Americans by supporting Chinese membership in the World Trade Organization in 2011. The former president is spending much of the week in a Manhattan courtroom in his criminal trial.
