Last month, in a CBS News interview, Mark Wu, Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, discussed how the U.S. could work to counter cheap Chinese imports hurting American workers. Professor Wu’s interview took place following U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen’s trip to China, where she underscored U.S. concerns with China’s industrial and economic policies. Today, in a move to protect U.S. jobs and to prevent Chinese firms from undercutting U.S. companies, the Biden Administration announced plans to raise tariffs on a range of Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, semiconductors, batteries, and solar cells.
As Professor Wu explained, because of overcapacity arising from subsidies, China is “flooding the market” with cheap products in a range of strategic sectors, including electric vehicles and semiconductors. This is “all part of a larger industrial policy plan that China has, which threatens the President’s manufacturing revival and also poses challenges to U.S. trading partners as well,” Wu said. He warned that the consequences for China’s actions extend beyond the U.S. with “ripple effects for jobs and also for security.” Watch the full interview to understand more about why the U.S. is taking further action against Chinese imports.