Biden reviewing tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by Trump

The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) announced on Tuesday that the Biden administration has begun to review tariffs that were imposed four years ago by former US President Donald Trump.

The tariffs due to expire in the coming months will be reviewed, and domestic industries that benefited from the tariffs will need to request their continuation. Otherwise, the USTR might terminate the tariffs to ease inflation, which is reaching a four-decade high.

The USTR said in a statement, referring to the tariffs imposed under the China’s Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation policy that “The first step in the process is to notify representatives of domestic industries that benefit from the tariff actions of the possible termination of those actions."

If a request for continuation is received from these industries, the USTR will conduct a review of the tariffs, which are set to expire automatically four years after being imposed, unless the USTR decides to continue them.

The review must be concluded within 60 days of their potential end, which is July 6 for the first group of $34 billion worth of duties. Even with inflation running above 7% and prices surging, the Biden administration has not yet signaled plans to remove the tariffs, which were signed in 2018 as part of Trump's trade war with China.

Despite the growth of the US economy by 5.7% in 2021, inflation has grown even faster, rising 5.8% for all of last year.