Global EditionASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
    World
    Home / World / China-US

    Yellen flags end for some China tariffs

    Amid economic strains, US Treasury chief says action may be weeks away

    By ZHAO HUANXIN in Washington | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2022-06-10 08:10
    Share
    Share - WeChat
    WASHINGTON, District of Columbia, UNITED STATES : WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 07: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen testifies during a hearing before Senate Finance Committee at Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill June 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing to examine the Biden Administration's budget request for fiscal year 2023 for the Treasury Department. Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP

    Amid economic strains, US Treasury chief says action may be weeks away

    US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Wednesday that Washington is looking to rescind some tariffs on Chinese imports "in the coming weeks", the first time the Biden administration has offered a timeline for the rollback of the duties to help rein in surging inflation.

    "This administration inherited a set of (Section) 301 tariffs imposed by the Trump administration that I think really weren't designed to serve our strategic interests," Yellen said during testimony to the House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee.

    During his presidency, Donald Trump launched a trade war with China in 2018, slapping additional tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese imports, citing Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974.

    Yellen told lawmakers that the US needs to address China's "unfair trade practices", but some of the tariffs ended up being paid by people in the US, in the way they strained consumers and businesses.

    "We are taking a look at those and looking to be able to address, to reconfigure those tariffs in a way that would be more strategic," the Treasury chief added.

    Prompted for a timeline by Jackie Walorski, a US representative from Indiana, Yellen said: "I think in the coming weeks, we expect; I can't give you a firm timeline, but with respect to the exclusion process and tariffs, that's something that's under active consideration."

    Walorski, a Republican, is among more than 140 US lawmakers who wrote a letter in late January to call on US Trade Representative Katherine Tai to revive and expand a tariff-exclusion process on Chinese goods to help US manufacturers and workers.

    During the testimony, Walorski said inflation in the US had reached a 40-year peak, and in seeking to provide relief for it, she and many of her colleagues on the House Ways and Means Committee pushed for a "robust" Section 301 exclusion process for the majority of the time those tariffs were in place.

    "The administration's policies have given us climbing gas prices, persistent supply chain bottlenecks, workforce shortages and surging inflation. The need for relief has never been greater," she said.

    The US Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to release the May consumer price index, or CPI, on Friday.

    In April, US consumer inflation increased by 8.3 percent from a year ago. In March, the US logged a CPI of 8.5 percent, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending December 1981, according to the bureau.

    To understand the deflationary impact of tariff reductions, Megan Hogan and Yilin Wang, both research analysts at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said they estimated that cutting the China tariffs could eventually lead to about a 1 percentage-point reduction in inflation.

    Gary Hufbauer, a former US Treasury official and nonresident senior fellow at the institute, said US President Joe Biden's "problem from hell" is inflation, on which he has to take "concrete" steps to show concern.

    Biden said during a trip to Asia late last month that reducing tariffs imposed on China was "under consideration".

    "Business firms that use Chinese components are lobbying hard for exclusions and just outright repeal. That's a strong force within Congress and making itself felt in the White House," Hufbauer said.

    Some recent relief

    The US trade representative has most recently provided some relief from the China tariffs by reinstating 352 expired product-specific exclusions from the duties of up to 25 percent.

    The office is conducting a statutory four-year review of the initial Section 301 tariffs it imposed on Chinese imports.

    Asked if Yellen's talk of a timetable may have considered the time for the mandatory review, Hufbauer said: "The timing of the Sec 301 reviews is coincidental. But much broader exclusions might be part of the answer."

    He estimated that "whatever action" will come between June and August, before the midterm congressional elections in November.

    Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said a World Trade Organization expert panel had ruled that the Section 301 tariffs were in breach of the US' WTO obligations.

    "The fact is that imposing tariffs has harmed both sides over the past few years, and much of the hurt has been passed on to their own companies and consumers," he said.

     

     

    Most Viewed in 24 Hours
    Top
    BACK TO THE TOP
    English
    Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
    License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

    Registration Number: 130349
    FOLLOW US
    精品深夜AV无码一区二区| 日韩精品无码免费专区午夜不卡| 高潮潮喷奶水飞溅视频无码| 国产精品无码久久综合网| 精品无码国产自产在线观看水浒传| 亚洲成?Ⅴ人在线观看无码| 无码国内精品人妻少妇蜜桃视频| 天堂中文在线资源| 亚洲精品无码鲁网中文电影 | 中文字幕成人免费视频| MM1313亚洲精品无码| 无码137片内射在线影院| 国产成人A亚洲精V品无码| 91在线中文字幕| 中文在线中文A| 无码人妻一区二区三区免费视频| 日韩丰满少妇无码内射| 人妻无码精品久久亚瑟影视| 欧美麻豆久久久久久中文| 日韩精品无码中文字幕一区二区| 天堂AV无码AV一区二区三区 | 国产AV无码专区亚洲A∨毛片| A级毛片无码久久精品免费| 中文字幕一区二区三区在线不卡 | 亚洲激情中文字幕| 精品久久久中文字幕人妻| 性无码专区一色吊丝中文字幕| 国产成人无码久久久精品一| 精品国产a∨无码一区二区三区 | 无码国内精品人妻少妇蜜桃视频| 中文字幕久久精品| 久久亚洲日韩看片无码| 欧洲精品无码一区二区三区在线播放| 最近2018中文字幕免费视频| 欧美一级一区二区中文字幕 | 无码国内精品久久综合88| 亚洲国产中文字幕在线观看| 最近中文字幕免费大全| 国产aⅴ激情无码久久| 无码人妻品一区二区三区精99 | 日韩人妻无码精品无码中文字幕|