White House Weighs In on Administration Divide on China Tariffs

While the treasury secretary has said before that some of the tariffs on Chinese goods hurt America more than they hurt China (see 2107190046), and the U.S. trade representative has defended them, the White House has now said that the administration's review of its China trade policy is taking inflation into account.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked on April 25 about whether tariffs might come off non-strategic goods such as bicycles and apparel, the goods on List 3 and List 4A. She replied: "From the beginning of the administration, we talked about how some of the tariffs implemented by the previous administration were not strategic and instead raised costs on Americans. And our effort -- which has been ongoing, of course -- has been to ensure current Section 301 tariffs align appropriately with our economic and trade priorities.... And we're certainly looking at where we see costs being raised at a time where we're seeing heightened inflation; certainly, that's on our minds." She suggested the tariffs that protect America's technological edge, and tariffs that slow the import of Chinese products that were impacting wages and job opportunities are the ones that have strategic value.

Importers hoping to roll back the list 3 and 4A tariffs through a lawsuit did not convince the Court of International Trade that the USTR was out of bounds in adding to its original Section 301 list (see 2204010046), though it did ask USTR to respond to public comments more fully.

Psaki also said during the press briefing that USTR Katherine Tai is the leader in deciding how the tariffs help address core issues in Chinese economic policy, and Tai has been dismissive of the argument that the tariffs should be rolled back to help with inflation. She told the House Ways and Means Committee in March that she "would be very, very concerned about taking steps to be reactive to today's challenges … that would undermine our longer- term strategic approaches" to preserve America's competitiveness (see 2203300003).

Psaki was asked by the reporter if any of the tariffs on non-technological goods would be removed soon, which a National Security Council official said ought to happen (see 2204220036). She said she could not project if that would happen, merely saying, "We're continuing to review it."