Former President Donald Trump said it would be a “terrible mistake” if the Biden administration decided to combat inflation by lifting tariffs on Chinese goods. Moreover, Trump said such a decision would make the United States look “weak.”
“Believe it or not, it is looking more and more like the United States is getting ready to remove the tariffs on China. This would be a terrible mistake,” Trump said in a statement released on his Truth Social account on July 5.
“Doing this would be the greatest gift that China could ever receive,” he continued. “Taking these tariffs off would be a clear signal that the United States is weak, ineffective, and doing business as usual.”
Trump began hitting China with tariffs after a U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) investigation in 2018 found that the communist regime was engaging in illegal practices, including excessive government subsidies and intellectual property theft.
Beijing retaliated by slapping tariffs on U.S. goods, bringing the two nations into a trade war.
The two countries signed a trade deal in January 2020, requiring China to buy an additional $200 billion in U.S. goods and services during 2020 and 2021, compared to 2017 levels.
However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) hasn’t fulfilled its promises under the deal. According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), China bought only 57 percent of the U.S. exports it had promised to buy. In other words, the Chinese regime “bought none of the additional $200 billion of exports Trump’s deal had promised,” PIIE’s senior fellow Chad Bown stated.
Inflation
It has been more than a month since the Biden administration revealed that it was considering removing the Trump-era China tariffs. In June, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a House hearing that “some reductions may be warranted and could help to bring down the prices of things that people buy that are burdensome.”
U.S. inflation jumped to 8.6 percent in May, the highest level in 40 years.
By Frank Fang
