Getty Images Ambassador Katherine Tai spent a second day outlining the Biden administration’s trade agenda on Capitol Hill. Early in a Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C., U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai took a question from Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) about the economic and national security risks that would come with an import surge of electric vehicles (EVs) made by the burgeoning and heavily subsidized Chinese auto industry. How does President Biden’s 2024 trade agenda, the senator asked, address such a looming threat? This was Tai’s second day ..read more

Screenshot of President Biden speaking at United Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh on Wednesday afternoon. During a trip to United Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh, President Biden also called on the U.S. Trade Representative to triple tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports. The Biden administration is ramping up efforts to counter China’s predatory trade practices, announcing on Wednesday that it will launch “an investigation of acts, policies, and practices of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) targeting the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors for dominance ..read more

A rendering of the interior of the planned double-decker rail cars built by CRRC for SEPTA’s regional rail system. CRRC handout SEPTA said the contract to build double-decker rail cars was “terminated for cause.” CRRC failed to deliver a single car; the project was four years behind schedule and $50 million over budget. When the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in 2017 selected the Chinese state-owned entity CRRC to manufacture 45 double-decker cars for its regional rail system, officials cited cost as the key factor behind its decision. CRRC’s bid came in at about $1 ..read more

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) chairs a meeting of the Senate Banking Committee. File Photo “Tariffs alone are insufficient,” argues the senator from Ohio, pointing to the level of risk Chinese auto imports present to the U.S. auto industry. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) this week called for an outright ban on the sale of Chinese-made electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States, warning that exposing the U.S. auto industry to such heavily subsidized import competition would be a huge risk and that “tariffs alone are insufficient.” “There are currently no Chinese EVs for sale in the United Sta ..read more

Getty Images The Kiel Institute for the World Economy examined just how much money China’s government is spending to dominate the production of electric vehicles, solar panels, and more. Spoiler: It’s a lot. Back in February, Chinese automaker Build Your Dreams (BYD) unveiled a new electric sport utility vehicle called the Yuan Up, priced starting at $14,000. That’s an astonishing low cost for an electric SUV — and one that we warned could lead to an “extinction-level event” for the U.S. auto industry. What’s important to keep in mind about BYD and its extraordinarily cheap electric automobile ..read more

Getty Images A new law is a good start toward reinvesting more taxpayer dollars into local workers and businesses. Will other states enact their own measures? Virginia is the latest state to enact legislation to ensure Made in America products are given preference for state government-funded contracts. Language in the Virginia Public Procurement Act, which passed the state legislature in March and will go into effect in July, clarifies the preference given for bids on state taxpayer-funded projects. In the case of a tie bid, goods produced in Virginia will get the first shot at the contract, f ..read more

Workers in an automobile factory in Beijing. Getty Images Dingell joined a group of fellow Democrats to urge the Biden administration to block Chinese autos from entering the U.S. market. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich) and eight other House Democrats sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai on Tuesday urging action to mitigate the imminent danger posed by the expansion of Chinese automotive exports into the United States. The representatives from the auto manufacturing states of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Alabama warned that the Chinese Commu ..read more

Getty Images New economic indicators show that U.S. manufacturing needs trade enforcement to level the playing field. Industrial investment has kickstarted a factory boom across America, but new economic indicators suggest that, without trade action, the United States manufacturing sector won’t be able to achieve its full potential growth. This February, U.S. factories as a whole saw neither factory job losses, nor job gains, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on Friday. The news follows the Census Bureau’s announcement that the U.S. goods trade deficit rose by $1 billion in Fe ..read more

Getty Images The glut of Chinese exports of clean energy products are causing lots of gripes. How will they respond? Europe’s sundry national officials, looking at a flood of dumped Chinese exports, are debating how best to “rebalance” European Union’s trade flows ahead of this summer’s elections for its parliament. And the rhetoric is getting spicy!   “We must show our teeth to economic rivals,” said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. “The era of happy globalization is over and everyone needs to wake up — the era of a globalization of rivalries ha ..read more

Employees working at the U. S. Steel Gary Works pig iron caster. Photo courtesy U.S. Steel. The 123-year-old steelmaker will partner with CarbonFree to capture and turn harmful carbon emissions into a carbon-neutral version of calcium carbonate. The United States Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel) announced on Wednesday a collaboration with Texas-based CarbonFree to capture carbon emissions produced by U.S. Steel’s Gary Works blast furnaces in Northwest Indiana. The project will be the first commercial-scale carbon capture utilization plant at a steel mill in North America and puts U.S. Steel on a ..read more