尽管拜登政府不会承认，但对美国商品征收新关税中国周二宣布的这一消息代表着总统的重大转变乔·拜登.
早在2019年，拜登抨击了时任总统唐纳德·特朗普美国对价值3000亿美元的中国进口商品加征关税。
“特朗普没有得到最基本的东西。他认为他的关税是由中国支付的说当时。“任何一个大一的经济学学生都会告诉你，美国人民正在支付他的关税。“
然后在2020年，拜登在竞选白宫时誓言如果当选将取消特朗普的关税。
研究表明美国消费者在很大程度上承受了这些税收的冲击。
但现在，拜登不仅保留了特朗普时代的关税，他实际上还在继续扩大关税。
诚然，拜登对价值180亿美元的中国进口商品征收的新关税仅限于少数战略行业。在玫瑰园发布新行动的活动中，拜登将其吹捧为针对电动汽车、太阳能电池、钢铁、铝和某些医疗设备等商品的“聪明做法”。
但他仍在维持特朗普时代的许多广泛关税，他曾高度批评这些关税。
在白宫每日新闻发布会上，美国贸易代表凯瑟琳·泰多次被问及这一明显的逆转。
“就美国人在前一个时代付出的代价而言，其中一些——也许很多——是关于它所造成的混乱和不可预测性以及由此导致的升级，”泰说。
泰补充说，除了查看价格，对特朗普时代关税的长达数年的审查还调查了它们是否改变了中国的行为。
“我们不仅没有看到有问题的做法在某些领域得到补贴，我们还看到它们变得更糟。有鉴于此，我们实际上没有理由，也没有理由减轻对华贸易的关税负担，”她说。
尽管如此，美国全国零售联合会(National Retail Federation)仍呼吁拜登废除这些关税，认为“随着消费者继续抗击通胀，政府最不应该做的事情就是对进口产品征收额外的税，这些税将由美国进口商支付，最终由美国消费者支付。”
拜登的转变部分反映了政治环境——拜登和特朗普都在努力在2024年的复赛中对中国采取更强硬的态度——但这也反映出人们越来越认识到中国的贸易做法正在削弱美国制造商和工人。
戴大使认为，中国的经济模式是建立在“国家支持体系之上的，这一体系是为了控制和接管整个产业而建立的。”泰补充说，北京的补贴旨在“垄断”世界市场，实现“主导”和“依赖”
美国贸易代表办公室前法律总顾问Greta Peisch告诉美国广播公司:“事情已经发生了变化。人们曾希望，随着时间的推移，中国会变得更加自由。近年来，我们看到了相反的情况。中国的做法扭曲了贸易。”
Biden once slammed Trump's China tariffs. Now he's building on them: ANALYSIS
Although the Biden administration won't admit it, new tariffs onChinaannounced Tuesday represent a major shift for PresidentJoe Biden.
Back in 2019, Biden slammed then-PresidentDonald Trump's move to impose tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports.
"Trump doesn't get the basics. He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China," Bidensaidat the time. "Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs."
Then in 2020, while campaigning for the White House, Biden vowed to remove Trump's tariffs if elected.
Studies have shownthat American consumers largely bore the brunt of those taxes.
But now, not only is Biden keeping those Trump-era tariffs in place, he actually is building on them.
It's true that Biden's new tariffs on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports are narrowly focused on a few strategic industries. At a Rose Garden event unveiling the new actions, Biden touted it as a "smart approach" to target goods such as electric vehicles, solar cells, steel, aluminum and certain medical equipment.
But he is maintaining many of the broad-based tariffs from the Trump-era that he was once highly critical of.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai was repeatedly pressed on the apparent reversal during the White House daily press briefing.
"In terms of the price that Americans paid for in the previous era, some of that -- maybe a lot of it -- was about the chaos and unpredictability that it created and the escalation that resulted," Tai said.
Tai added that in addition to looking at prices, the yearslong review of the Trump-era tariffs also investigated whether they had changed China's behavior.
"Not only have we not seen the problematic practices subsidize in some areas, we have seen them get worse. And in that light, there is actually no reason for us, no justification to relieving the tariff burdens on the trade with Beijing," she said.
Still, the National Retail Federation is calling on Biden to repeal those tariffs, arguing that "as consumers continue to battle inflation, the last thing the administration should be doing is placing additional taxes on imported products that will be paid by U.S. importers and eventually U.S. consumers."
Biden's shift partly reflects the political environment -- with both Biden and Trump fighting to appear tougher on China in what's shaping up to be a 2024 rematch -- but it also reflects growing recognition that China's trade practices are undercutting American manufacturers and workers.
Ambassador Tai argues that China's economic model is built on a "system of state support that is built to dominate and take over entire industries." Tai adds that Beijing's subsidies aim to "corner" the world market and achieve "dominance" and "dependency."
Greta Peisch, the former general counsel for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, told ABC News: "Things have changed and evolved. There was a hope that China would become more of a free market over time. We've seen the opposite in recent years. It's been trade distorted by China's practices."
