In The Wall Street Journal, Paul Page explains importers’ growing ire over new tariffs on Chinese goods. He writes:
Trade groups representing importers derided President Biden’s move to raise tariffs on a range of imports from China, saying the duties will increase costs in supply chains and lead to higher prices for consumers.
“Broad-based tariffs are not strategic and will impede U.S. economic growth,” said Blake Harden, vice president of international trade at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, a Washington-based group that counts Apple, Walmart, Target, Best Buy and Lowe’s among its members.
The levies will end up “hamstringing American businesses trying to compete globally and negatively impacting the paycheck of American workers,” Harden said.
“As consumers continue to battle inflation, the last thing the administration should be doing is placing additional taxes on imported products that will be paid by U.S. importers and eventually U.S. consumers,” said David French, executive vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation, another group representing store owners.
President Biden on Tuesday raised tariffs on a range of Chinese-manufactured goods, including electric vehicles, semiconductors, steel, aluminum and medical products. The White House said it would also keep in place duties imposed during the Trump administration as part of a U.S.-China trade war in 2018 and 2019.
The tariffs are aimed at blunting what the administration sees as China’s aggressive moves to increase exports to boost its domestic economy, efforts the White House believes are having an outsize impact on global markets. They are also aimed at triggering a reconfiguration of supply chains, including more manufacturing in the U.S. and greater nearshoring—the shift of production from China to other countries such as Mexico to avoid the tariffs.
Factory work in countries including Mexico, India and Vietnam has been growing. But John Donigian, senior director of supply-chain strategy at Moody’s, said the new, higher tariffs would create ”additional risk and complexity in an already strained supply-chain environment.”
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