Biden Trade Chief Nominee Sees Tariffs As 'Important Tools' - Testimony

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th February, 2021) Tariffs are important tools to protect US trade interests though a strategy rethink is also needed to ensure just returns for the world's leading economy and its trading partners, President Biden's Trade Representative nominee Katherine Tai said on Thursday.

"Tariffs are a very important part of our fair trade remedies toolbox," Tai told a Senate hearing held to confirm her nomination.

But the United States also needs to rethink strategic trade policies, Tai said.

Biden since taking office has not dramatically changed Trump administration trade policies. In fact, earlier this week Yahoo news reported that he is likely to leave the tariffs on China in place.

"Trade policies in past decades have pitted one segment of US workers against another. We must better coordinate and break out of that pattern," she said.

Tai, who spent the past four years as the chief counsel for Biden's Democratic party on the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee responsible for trade, promised at Thursday's Senate hearing to act sensibly and tough on China at the same time.

In one of the first signs on how she would proceed, Tai signaled support for maintaining Trump administration tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

"We have to acknowledge that we have... a very significant global marketplace problem in the steel and aluminum markets that are driven primarily by China's overcapacity," Tai said. "But it's not, it's not just a China problem."

But to reflect the strategic rethink and balance she spoke about, she agreed in principle Beijing needed to keep promises it made to the Trump administration on the US-China phase one trade deal concluded in January 2020.

She also emphasized the need for the Biden administration to keep working on the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed under its predecessor and have a better working relationship with the World Trade Organization - which had been another favorite Trump target aside from China.

Washington needs to have "hard conversations in Geneva in a constructive way", she added, referring to the WTO.