The Hill: Democrats divided on tariffs amid woes over inflation

May 25, 2022 Media

Faced with mounting inflation and bad poll numbers, Democratic lawmakers are divided over whether to get rid of Trump-era tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in goods imported from China, which some Democrats think would lower costs for consumers.

Vulnerable Democratic senators from two key battleground states, Arizona and Nevada, are worried in particular that the administration may wind up slapping penalties on Chinese manufacturers of solar panels that have expanded their operations into Southeast Asia.

But tariffs on foreign imports are popular with labor unions and with voters in key presidential swing states such as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania — states that could decide who controls the White House after the 2024 election.

Lori Wallach, the director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, said representatives of industrial states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio — key presidential swing states — want to promote American manufacturing and combat dumping by Chinese solar manufacturers.

“Talk to [Sen.] Sherrod Brown [D-Ohio] or Sen. [Bob] Casey [D-Pa.], who are very invested in trying to create a domestic clean energy manufacturing,” she said, noting that proponents of domestic manufacturing argue that building the U.S. industrial base will insulate consumers from price shocks in the future in case foreign producers decide to shut down supplies.

Wallach said when the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act takes effect next month, it could cut dramatically into Chinese solar imports.

“The much bigger thing that’s coming down the pike is that in June the Uyghur Forced Labor Act that Congress passed gets implemented, and much of the actual silicon [for solar panels] comes from these forced labor concentration camps, basically, where the Uyghur people are,” she said. “The importers are in a panic because the way that law works, everything from that part of China is kept out unless you can prove the supply chain is free of forced labor.”