The United States announced on Friday that it will continue to apply the tariffs imposed by the previous government of donald trump to Chinese products, after hundreds of requests from American companies.
President Joe Biden had been considering the elimination of some of those tariffsamid pressure to ease rising US inflation.
But her team was divided, and the Trade Representative katherine tai (USTR) lobbied to keep them.
The levies could have ended on their fourth birthday, July 6 and August 23, had there been no objections from US companies.
“The representatives of national industries indicated that they would benefit from the commercial action in several ways,” the USTR detailed in the document justifying the decision.
Indeed, some 350 companies asked to maintain the customs taxes.
The USTR will “proceed to a review” of customs duties and their “implications on the US economy, including consumption.”
A first set of tariffs was imposed on July 6, 2018, before three other sets representing a total of 350,000 million dollars of annual exports from the Asian giant.
Trump took the actions in retaliation for Chinese business practices deemed “unfair” such as the “theft” of intellectual property or the “forced” transfer of technology.
Two other Chinese product lists, worth $200 billion and $126 billion, are set to expire on September 24, 2022 and September 1, 2023, respectively.
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