US biz groups ask Biden to resume trade talks with China, cut tariffs on Chinese goods

Nearly three dozen of America’s influential business groups have called on the Biden administration to resume trade talks with China and cut tariffs on Chinese-made goods.

According to a report in Wall Street Journal, the business groups representing retailers, chip makers, farmers and others have dispatched a letter to the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, stressing that the tariffs on imports are a drag on the US economy.

The tariffs have remained in place since the bitter trade war ensued between the two economic bulwarks, with relationship between them touching a new low in recent years.

The two countries have also fought over human rights, cyber-attacks, political tensions in Taiwan and military operations in the South China Sea.

The tariffs on electronics, apparel and other Chinese goods, which are paid by US importers, were kept in place to ensure that China fulfills its obligations under its 2020 Phase One trade pact with the US, the report said.

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In the letter filed on Thursday, the business groups assert that Beijing had met “important benchmarks and commitments” in the agreement, including opening markets to US financial institutions and reducing some regulatory barriers to US agricultural exports to China.

“A worker-centered trade agenda should account for the costs that US and Chinese tariffs impose on Americans here and at home and remove tariffs that harm US interests,” the letter stated, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

While the Biden administration has made its policy of confrontation with China emphatically clear, it has been cautious in ending the economic relationship with Beijing.

It has been more than seven months since the two sides began review of the trade deal that former US President Donald Trump signed with China in January 2020, without any result yet.

The letter by the group appears to be an attempt to nudge the Biden administration into action.

“Due to the tariffs, US industries face increased costs to manufacture products and provide services domestically, making their exports of these products and services less competitive abroad,” read the letter, as reported by The New York Times.

Though China has made large-scale purchases of US goods since the trade war, the amount and composition have fallen short of its commitments to buy $200 billion worth of American goods and services in 2020 and 2021, according to reports.

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“We strongly urge the administration to work with the Chinese government to increase purchases of U.S. goods through the remainder of 2021 and implement all structural commitments of the agreement before its two-year anniversary on Feb. 15, 2022,” read the letter.

In June, Biden administration further stretched a blacklist of former US administration that blocked Americans from investing in Chinese companies.

Biden included Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications giant, on the list of banned companies. The White House also announced the formation of a trade and technology council with American and European officials, an effort to counter China’s growing influence.

“We will not hesitate to call out China’s coercive and unfair trade practices that harm American workers, undermine the multilateral system or violate basic human rights,” Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative, said in prepared testimony for a Senate hearing in May. “We are working toward a strong, strategic approach to our trade and economic relationship with China.”

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