Biden raises tariffs on $18 billion of Chinese imports: EVs, solar panels, batteries and more

The Biden administration announced stiff new tariff rates Tuesday on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports. The White House said the tariff hikes were necessary to protect American industries from unfair competition.

Starting this year, President Joe Biden will quadruple tariffs on imported Chinese electric vehicles, from 25% to 100%. The import tax on Chinese solar cells will double, from 25% to 50%. And tariffs on some Chinese steel and aluminum imports will increase more than three-fold, from 7.5% today up to 25%.

The president also directed U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to more than triple the tariff rates on lithium-ion batteries for EVs and lithium batteries meant for other uses. Starting in 2025, tariffs on imported Chinese semiconductors will jump from 25% to 50%.

First-time tariffs will be imposed on Chinese imports of medical needles and syringes, as well as massive ship-to-shore cranes, the White House said in a fact sheet. Chinese rubber medical gloves and some respirators and face masks will also be hit with higher tariff rates.

Some items, like batteries and natural graphite, will have longer phase-in periods for tariffs.The White House said this is partly to give the U.S. manufacturing sector time to scale up to a point where enough batteries are being produced domestically to meet consumer demand.

"China is producing at a rate and with a trajectory that's far in excess of any plausible estimate of global demand," a senior administration official said on a Monday call with reporters.

"That is going to flood the global market with supply that undercuts our ability to build productive capacity at home and ... leaves all of us across the world more vulnerable to economic coercion," said the official.

Whit