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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday that she would not rule out taking any measures, including potential tariffs, on Chinese green energy exports.
“I'm not ruling anything out at this point,” she said in an interview with CNBC's Sarah Eisen. “We need to keep everything on the table. We want to work with the Chinese to see if we can find a solution.” He wondered about the possibility of Washington imposing tariffs if China does not modify its approach to industry incentives.
“I'm not thinking so much about export restrictions, as I am thinking about some shifts in macroeconomic policy, and reducing the amount of support provided by local governments to companies,” Yellen said.
However, she stressed the need to create a level playing field in green technology.
“We just want to make sure that we don't go out of business, and that our companies and our workers have opportunities in these industries that are going to be important in our future,” she added.
Yellen is currently in Beijing and is scheduled to leave China on Tuesday. I arrived in Guangzhou on Thursday last week to communicate with Chinese officials as tense economic relations between the two countries continue.
The United States has been increasingly expressing concerns about the oversupply of subsidized Chinese clean energy products — such as solar energy, electric cars and lithium-ion batteries — that it can export to international markets at discounted prices, which the White House says hurts U.S. competitiveness. Local companies. US allies, including Japan and Europe, share Washington's concern, in light of the abundance of cheap Chinese products. Like solar panelsTheir markets were flooded.
“It is good for Chinese companies to export in this industry, to develop it. But some of the methods they use – subsidizing their companies very heavily and then subsidizing them even when they lose money… this is something that is not acceptable to China.” “From the US perspective, many of our allies feel the same way,” Yellen said.
The Treasury Secretary said other countries may also explore the possibility of imposing trade restrictions on China. The European Union is currently conducting a process investigation In the potential “dumping” of subsidized Chinese electric cars in the region, which threatens to undermine the huge auto industry.
The Union has so far resisted implementing such measures due to its strong trade relations with the second largest economy in the world. Speaking on Monday ahead of a three-day trip to China, a spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was skeptical about the need to impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, according to Reuters.
China's Commerce Minister, Wang Wentao, on Monday criticized accusations of oversupply by the United States and Europe, saying instead that the rise of the country's electric vehicle industry was the result of “continuous innovations,” according to China's Commerce Ministry.
Electric vehicles manufactured in China are currently subject to hefty 27.5% tariffs in the United States — a policy imposed by former President Donald Trump due to concerns about unfair trade practices by Beijing.
The Biden administration had previously considered reducing tariffs, but Yellen said they were now being reviewed after reports that they might be… It rose more Amid pressure from Republican lawmakers. At the same time, China called for its reduction.
“[China] “They've said for a long time that they want to lower it,” Yellen said.
Launched by the Ministry of Commerce investigation In March, we asked whether Chinese electric vehicle imports could pose national security risks, particularly in light of the large amounts of data that “connected” car technologies can collect.
This comes amid growing doubts about the risks that Chinese technologies pose to American national security. Last month, US lawmakers passed a bill calling on Chinese tech giant ByteDance to divest its popular social media app TikTok in the US or face an effective ban.
Asked whether she believed China would allow TikTok assets to be sold to a US company or US investors, Yellen said she did not want to “pre-empt” developments.
“This is an important and profitable company, and I think they are concerned that they might be forced out of the United States,” she said.
Washington has also proposed clamping down on other Chinese companies seen as conflicting with US geopolitical and strategic interests. In particular, the Biden administration said it would impose sanctions on Chinese entities found to be assisting the Russian military in its war efforts in Ukraine.
“What we made clear is that it is unacceptable for us for China to support Russia militarily. This does not mean that China cannot have a relationship with Russia,” Yellen said.
“China and Russia do a lot of trade, [and] “Most of it is not a problem, but anything that involves helping Russia militarily in its brutal war against Ukraine is unacceptable to us and we have the ability to sanction it.”
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