US DEPARTMENT: Certain tariffs in China serve no ‘strategic purpose’

US Treasury Secretary Janet Glenn said today that some tariffs in China inherited from the administration of former President Donald Trump serve “no strategic purpose” and added that President Joe Biden was considering them as a way to reduce inflation. what Reuters broadcasts.

Another Biden government official, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, added that the president was also considering a federal gas tax cut as an option to cut prices.

Officials’ comments on Sunday come at a time when the Biden government is struggling to tackle record inflation and gasoline prices.

“President Biden is reviewing tariff policy toward China,” Glenn told ABC News on Sunday.

“We all recognize that China is involved in a number of unfair trade practices that are important to address, but the tariffs we have inherited, some of which serve no strategic purpose and increase costs for consumers,” he added. He did not list specific duties and declined to say when the Biden government could take a decision.

Biden has said he is considering lifting some of the tariffs imposed by his predecessor on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese products in 2018 and 2019 amid a bitter trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Granholm told CNN that the federal gas tax cut “has not left the table”. Both Granholm and Glenn reiterated Biden’s position that a recession “is not inevitable”, with the Treasury Secretary saying the labor market and consumer spending remain strong.

Whether the United States, the world’s largest economy, will slide into recession is a growing concern for CEOs, the US Federal Reserve and the Biden government.

“The job market is very strong, arguably the strongest since the post-war period,” Glenn told ABC News. He added, however, that he expected the economy to slow down, while acknowledging that inflation was “unacceptably high”.