As we highlighted in “First Thing Today,” President Joe Biden unveiled strong tariffs on $18 billion of Chinese goods. Biden cast the move as a necessary action to protect U.S. workers and businesses from companies that he accused of stealing, cheating and dumping underpriced goods into international markets.
“The Chinese government has poured state money into Chinese companies,” Biden said. “China heavily subsidized all these products, pushing Chinese companies to produce far more than the world can absorb and then dumping excess products on the market at unfairly low prices. When you make tactics like this, you’re not competing, it’s not competition, it’s cheating. And we’ve seen damage here in America,” Biden said.
Biden insisted he did not want conflict with China, just “fair competition.”
China condemned the tariffs and will take resolute measures to defend its rights and interests, the Chinese commerce ministry said. The ministry called on the U.S. to correct its “wrongdoings” and cancel the tariffs.
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