Biden administration blocks ‘second China shock’ with tariffs, US ambassador says

Envoy also warns that more sanctions on Chinese entities may follow to stem the flow of goods that support Russia’s military

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US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns arrives to attend the Barnett-Oksenberg Lecture on Sino-American Relations hosted by Amcham Shanghai, at a hotel in Shanghai in June. Photo: AP

Published: 3:20am, 27 Sep 2024Updated: 9:58am, 27 Sep 2024

America’s top envoy to Beijing said the US will not tolerate a “second China shock” and expressed support for a “global pushback” to surging capacity in China’s electric vehicle (EV) industry and other sectors.

Speaking via video link from Beijing on Thursday, US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns called on European allies to jointly address China’s overcapacity issues and support to Russia’s war against Ukraine. He also warned of more sanctions if Beijing did not cease supplies of dual-use goods to Moscow.

“I think that all of us around the world, in every single country, learned from the pandemic, don’t be reliant on a single source for critical materials,” he said at the Transatlantic Forum on GeoEconomics, organised by the Atlantic Council in New York.

“We saw President [Joe] Biden put 100 per cent tariffs on sales of EVs, Chinese EVs, into the US market. We do this because what the Chinese are engaged in is patently unfair under international trade, and we are not going to, in any way, tolerate a second China shock in the United States.”

Burns was referring to a sharp rise in Chinese imports in the 2000s as the first shock, which he said led to a loss of more than one million US manufacturing jobs.

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Why the EU, US are concerned about China’s overcapacity

The Biden administration has ramped up measures to counter Beijing’s push for more capacity in the country’s EV industry by raising tariffs on Chinese new energy products such as electric vehicles and solar panels to stop them from undercutting local manufacturers.