Will Biden Undermine His Own Climate Goals with New Tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles?

We speak with The New Republic's Kate Aronoff about how President Biden has unveiled steep tariff increases on various Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, which will quadruple from the current tariff rate of 25% to 100%. “What you see … is Biden really looking to lean into a really quite hawkish position on China,” says Aronoff. She explains why Biden is caught between insulating the American auto industry from competition and allowing affordable EVs to enter U.S. markets for climate goals. Aronoff says experts say Biden should work with China on this industry and “to not see this as zero-sum competition. We need to build a lot of clean technology. This is a very large pie, and there's no reason why the United States cannot also have a piece of it.”