The White House on Tuesday signaled some willingness to adjust some of former President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products.
Asked by reporters about an Axios report that President Joe Biden favors easing tariffs on some consumer items from China, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “some Trump tariffs were irresponsible and do not advance our economic or national security and instead raise costs for families and businesses.”
She said the Biden administration is “working to align these haphazard tariffs and our priorities,” but she does not “have anything to share about what the president’s decision is at this time.”
Some economists have been pressing the Biden administration to reduce tariffs to combat inflation, but a bipartisan group of nine U.S. senators sent a letter to Biden last month asking him to “substantially maintain” tariffs on Chinese imports arguing the levies are “not a driver of today’s inflation.”