Biden imposes new tariffs on China

[Sir Mohamed]

https://twitter.com/axios/status/1790340132190437399

President Biden is launching a preemptive strike against cheap Chinese imports of electric vehicles, batteries, solar equipment and other goods with aggressive new tariffs on Tuesday.

Why it matters: It's a long-term protectionist play to allow America's nascent green technology, infrastructure and manufacturing industries — which Biden is subsidizing with over $1 trillion in direct investments — to get up to scale.

-  But Biden's new tariffs also have a shorter-term political target: Former President Trump.

- They're part of a broader political strategy to co-opt Trump on some of the former president's perceived strengths: China, the border and relations with the business community.

Biden will announce the new tariffs on an additional $18 billion of Chinese imports in a Rose Garden ceremony at 12:15 p.m. ET today.

...

[Del Tachi]

When Trump raises tariffs…broke.  When Biden raises tariffs?  WOKE

[jojoju1998]

Biden ( and Trump ) don't understand the real risks to American jobs, and the whole economy. It's AI, Automation,


We ARE bringing jobs back, manufacturing jobs, but it's less, because we don't need as many workers now.

[Sir Mohamed]

Biden ( and Trump ) don't understand the real risks to American jobs, and the whole economy. It's AI, Automation,


We ARE bringing jobs back, manufacturing jobs, but it's less, because we don't need as many workers now.

These aren't mutually exclusive. Like it's true that the massive job losses in the Rust Belt over the last 30-40 years were primarily driven by automation, not exclusively though. The PRC has always been an economic threat by dumping their cheap stuff on our markets.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Not really a fan of tariffs regardless of which administration is imposing them.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

In an ideal world this is bad economic policy which will make inflation worse (although the effects are delayed, so it probably won't make any difference prior to the election).

However, there is at least a national security rationale for it, given the intelligence indications that Xi Jinping is seriously considering war/hostile foreign policy in the longer term.

But on the other hand, that national security rationale applies less to things like green energy than to things like steel or semiconductors.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Biden ( and Trump ) don't understand the real risks to American jobs, and the whole economy. It's AI, Automation,

Destruction of jobs by automation is a positive thing for long term human wellbeing.

You, personally, are much better off today as a result of the fact that the hand-loom weavers became unemployed. Not only do you benefit tremendously from having lots of cheap clothes (and other material goods and services), but you also benefit from not having to work a horrible, tedious, tiring job as a hand-loom weaver.

In the modern context, it is true some people (and potentially a LOT) could suffer in the short term from AI in particular. But if so, the remedy to that is to change the economic-political system to prevent unnecessary hardship and allow everyone to be better off as a result of technology, while increasing automation requires us to put increasingly less work and effort into getting more and better things that we want. This is much preferable to foregoing the benefits of technology (assuming that AI doesn't kill us, of course, but that's a separate question from its economic impact).

[Old Man Willow]

Not really a fan of tariffs regardless of which administration is imposing them.

[Progressive Pessimist]

When Trump raises tariffs…broke.  When Biden raises tariffs?  WOKE

To be fair, it seemed to work electorally for Trump in apealing to the working class, why shouldn't that be true for Biden as well?

What is or isn't sound policy doesn't matter anymore when we have a populace that doesn't really value it. Performative measures are the mainstream way of our politics now, sadly.

[GP270watch]

 None of this will stop the inevitable, Chinese cars are taking over the world and we lost to China on solar and renewables because the Republcians party is stuck on an energy policy from early last century.

[BlueSwan]

Biden ( and Trump ) don't understand the real risks to American jobs, and the whole economy. It's AI, Automation,

Destruction of jobs by automation is a positive thing for long term human wellbeing.

You, personally, are much better off today as a result of the fact that the hand-loom weavers became unemployed. Not only do you benefit tremendously from having lots of cheap clothes (and other material goods and services), but you also benefit from not having to work a horrible, tedious, tiring job as a hand-loom weaver.

In the modern context, it is true some people (and potentially a LOT) could suffer in the short term from AI in particular. But if so, the remedy to that is to change the economic-political system to prevent unnecessary hardship and allow everyone to be better off as a result of technology, while increasing automation requires us to put increasingly less work and effort into getting more and better things that we want. This is much preferable to foregoing the benefits of technology (assuming that AI doesn't kill us, of course, but that's a separate question from its economic impact).

This. So much this.

I'm not really a big fan of punitive tariffs at all, but on the other hand, China needs to be forced to compete on more equal terms than what we are currently seeing. Would have much preferred a negotiated solution though.

[ingemann]

Biden ( and Trump ) don't understand the real risks to American jobs, and the whole economy. It's AI, Automation,

Destruction of jobs by automation is a positive thing for long term human wellbeing.

You, personally, are much better off today as a result of the fact that the hand-loom weavers became unemployed. Not only do you benefit tremendously from having lots of cheap clothes (and other material goods and services), but you also benefit from not having to work a horrible, tedious, tiring job as a hand-loom weaver.

In the modern context, it is true some people (and potentially a LOT) could suffer in the short term from AI in particular. But if so, the remedy to that is to change the economic-political system to prevent unnecessary hardship and allow everyone to be better off as a result of technology, while increasing automation requires us to put increasingly less work and effort into getting more and better things that we want. This is much preferable to foregoing the benefits of technology (assuming that AI doesn't kill us, of course, but that's a separate question from its economic impact).

This. So much this.

I'm not really a big fan of punitive tariffs at all, but on the other hand, China needs to be forced to compete on more equal terms than what we are currently seeing. Would have much preferred a negotiated solution though.

Yes, I agree I’m not a fan of tariffs, but China is free game for tariffs.

[dead0man]

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1138506137697959939

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1138506137697959939

Issue is trading with China also emboldens our main enemy at the current moment. Free Trade is good but it must not be put over national security concerns and China is a threat to our national security at the current moment.

Not as big as the USSR used to be but still a major threat

[Cashew]

I really need to trim my Tesla holdings soon. No way is China not going to retaliate after this.

[Badger]

When Trump raises tariffs…broke.  When Biden raises tariffs?  WOKE

You see, there are these things called "numbers" and "math" your post seems to strangely ignore. Believe It or Not there is a really big difference between relatively moderate tariffs on a few specific Industries which China has unquestionably subsidized and dumped to flood markets and on which America's future economic strength depends, versus Trump proposing an utterly gargantuan 60% tariff on all Chinese Imports across the board, not to mention another 10% tariffs on all other Imports from everywhere else in the world.

I'm going to assume that you aren't truly this stupid, but merely all those people who voted for you in the "who's the biggest Republican hack on Atlas" thread got it right.

[Del Tachi]

When Trump raises tariffs…broke.  When Biden raises tariffs?  WOKE

You see, there are these things called "numbers" and "math" your post seems to strangely ignore. Believe It or Not there is a really big difference between relatively moderate tariffs on a few specific Industries which China has unquestionably subsidized and dumped to flood markets and on which America's future economic strength depends, versus Trump proposing an utterly gargantuan 60% tariff on all Chinese Imports across the board, not to mention another 10% tariffs on all other Imports from everywhere else in the world.

I'm going to assume that you aren't truly this stupid, but merely all those people who voted for you in the "who's the biggest Republican hack on Atlas" thread got it right.

..wtf?  Biden is literally escalating Trump's tariffs.  Under Biden's plan, tariffs increase:

--25% to 50% on solar cells
--0% to 50% on syringes and needles
--7.5% to 25% on lithium-ion batteries
--25% to 100% on EVs

You are literally making stuff up.  There is nothing "moderate" about Biden's approach here.  Trump never had tariffs this high.    

[Santander]

Joe Biden is a fascist traitor who hates the environment.

[NYSforKennedy2024]

When Trump raises tariffs…broke.  When Biden raises tariffs?  WOKE

You see, there are these things called "numbers" and "math" your post seems to strangely ignore. Believe It or Not there is a really big difference between relatively moderate tariffs on a few specific Industries which China has unquestionably subsidized and dumped to flood markets and on which America's future economic strength depends, versus Trump proposing an utterly gargantuan 60% tariff on all Chinese Imports across the board, not to mention another 10% tariffs on all other Imports from everywhere else in the world.

I'm going to assume that you aren't truly this stupid, but merely all those people who voted for you in the "who's the biggest Republican hack on Atlas" thread got it right.

RemindMe! May 16th, 2026