U.S. Considering Hiking Tariffs On China EVs, Solar Products: WSJ

(Bloomberg) -- The US is considering raising tariffs on some Chinese goods, including electric cars, as it attempts to limit reliance on China in the clean-energy supply chain and shield its own green industry against cheaper Chinese exports, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing people it didn’t identify.

While officials in President Joe Biden’s administration have largely left in place Trump-era tariffs on around $300 billion of Chinese goods, the White House and other agencies are debating the levies again, the people said, with an eye on completing a review of the tariffs early in the new year.

Chinese electric vehicles are already subject to a 25% tariff, which has limited the number of cars Chinese automakers are sending to the US. China’s BYD Co., for example, on the cusp of overtaking Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. as the world’s biggest seller of electric cars, doesn’t retail its passenger vehicles in the US. 

Raising those EV tariffs would therefore likely have little immediate impact on US consumers, according to the report.

Other targets for potential tariff-rate increases are Chinese solar products and EV battery packs, the people familiar with the matter said. While the US now primarily imports solar material from Southeast Asia, China is still a huge supplier of EV batteries. Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., based in Ningde, Fujian, is the world’s biggest maker of EV batteries.

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