(PatrioticPost.com)- Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) is demanding an explanation from officials in President Joe Biden’s administration for the decision to lift tariffs on hundreds of Chinese-made goods.
Last month, Biden’s United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai announced the reduction of Section 301 tariffs on more than 350 Chinese-made items imported into the US market.
Breast pumps, solar water heaters, garage door openers, X-ray tables, thermostats, and food goods from China such as crab meat, Dungeness crab, and Alaskan sole will be exempt from tariffs.
Cotton dubbed the administration’s decision to lower tariffs on China “economic appeasement.”
In a letter to Tai requesting answers to concerns about the decision-making process, Cotton said that by awarding tariff exemptions for over 350 Chinese-made items, the Biden regime punched a massive hole in our enforcement system. These trade concessions are a gift to Chinese producers.
The congressman wanted to know how many of the China-made items excluded from US tariffs can be easily manufactured in the United States or in a foreign country that is at least a US ally.
Cotton also wondered how much would trade with China likely grow due to these tariff exemptions in terms of expected overall dollar value. He wanted to know if it was more probable that our trade imbalance would expand or shrink.
Between 2001 and 2018, the United States free trade agreement with China resulted in the loss of 3.7 million American jobs and 2.8 million in manufacturing. During the same period, at least 50,000 industrial plants in the United States shuttered.
Those significant employment losses have coincided with a burgeoning trade gap between the United States and China. The US trade imbalance with China was $6 billion in 1985 before China joined the WTO. The US trade imbalance with China was more than $345 billion in 2019.
Meanwhile, a 2019 research concluded that imposing permanent 25% tariffs on all Chinese imports would create more than a million American jobs in five years. Manufacturing in the United States is critical to the economy since every manufacturing job supports 7.4 employment in other industries.
