[Epoch Times] Despite joining the WTO in 2001, China did not evolve into the fully-fledged market economy that the United States had anticipated.China's economic growth has accelerated dramatically since the country joined the WTO. However, the Chinese Communist Party’s trade-distorting practices, such as intellectual property theft, massive state subsidies, currency manipulation, wage suppression, and labor rights violations, have led to the closure of many U.S. manufacturers and the loss of millions of U.S. jobs.
There is a bipartisan view in Washington on the need to address China’s market practices.
Before the November election last year, President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan defended tariffs against China. "Previous efforts to build a China policy on changing China have not succeeded," Sullivan said on Oct. 24.
As a result, he said, the United States must adopt a new set of strategies based on the current geopolitical and economic realities.
During his first term, Trump imposed tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese goods in response to various unfair trade practices, including intellectual property theft.
The Biden administration chose to maintain those tariffs and announced additional tariffs on products such as electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels, medical equipment, lithium-ion batteries, steel, and aluminum.
Both administrations have used tariffs to level the playing field for domestic manufacturers and American workers.
Nick Iacovella, executive vice president for the Coalition for a Prosperous America, an organization that represents domestic producers and workers, said that Trump’s new tariffs will address the decades of deindustrialization in the United States. "It is incredibly important that those tariffs actually stay in place."
For decades, there has been a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, Iacovella said, commenting on the recent market reaction to the global tariffs. "When automakers moved their jobs to Mexico, their stock prices went up, but car prices didn’t decrease for American consumers," he said.