According to a report published by the US media Bloomberg quoted by the Observer, US Treasury Secretary Yellen revealed in an exclusive interview with the media that the Biden administration has conveyed to the Chinese side that the United States will reconfigure the policy of imposing tariffs on China initiated during the Trump administration. Yellen stressed that the United States has no intention of decoupling its economy from China, but the United States must ensure that the playing field is level. At the same time, Yellen also denied that the Biden administration will take large-scale trade restrictions on "major economic competitors" in a short period of time, but the United States will not allow China to dominate strategic areas such as semiconductors and clean energy.
At the end of the interview, Yellen said "from the heart" intentionally or unintentionally, saying that "I am not happy to see a strong response from China, but this possibility has always existed." Yellen further noted that the possibility that China will impose restrictive measures on US companies, including Tesla, as a response to potential US sanctions is not ruled out. Yellen's statement released two messages, one is to quibble for the Biden administration's trade protection policy, even if the United States wants to impose tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles by more than 100%, even if the American market has never really opened up to Chinese electric vehicles, it is necessary to maintain "fair competition".
In response, Hua Chunying attacked Yellen on the "X" platform on the 13th and responded: "Translate (Yellen's words): We (the United States) will use subsidies to support the American industry, because it is strategic, but when others do it, it is unfair competition." The second is to create anxiety and panic for American companies operating in China, and Yellen specifically mentioned Tesla in her speech, which is to hint that Tesla may be retaliated. But will things really turn out the way Yellen foresees? The answer is clearly no. Unlike the United States, which avoids or even resists competition, China is embracing the future with open hands. At the same time that Yellen invited credit in front of her domestic media, Tesla's Shanghai energy storage gigafactory construction project has been approved for the construction permit, and this is also Truss's first energy storage gigafactory outside the United States.
According to the plan, the plant will achieve mass production in the first quarter of 2025, with an energy storage scale of 40 GWh, covering an area of 200,000 square meters, and a total investment of 1.45 billion yuan. Facts have proved that Yellen is secretly poking at the cooperation between China and American companies in order to create more artificial panic and urge these American companies that produce and operate in China to bring capital and technology back to their homeland.
But the irony is that both Yellen's sophistry and the Biden administration's upcoming ultra-high tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles reveal the United States' incompetence. A basic fact is that Chinese electric vehicles have never knocked on the door of the U.S. market, which is why the Biden administration dares to impose tariffs of more than 100%, because there is no pressure on Biden to sanction a product that has never appeared on the market. Bloomberg analyzed on the 13th that the U.S. tariffs are mainly "symbolic", because the Chinese industries included in the scope of the tariffs, especially the electric vehicle industry, do not rely on the U.S. market.
Bloomberg also quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that the Biden administration has signaled to its PV industry that the Chinese products that will not include the production equipment of solar panel modules. It can be seen that the Biden administration's current round of tariffs is not only for election purposes, but also to "watch people put on the plate", and the so-called "protection of American workers" is just a "big pie" drawn to win votes. At the same time, we should also realize that "embracing competition" does not mean that China will "not fight back".
Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had warned that the Biden administration planned to increase tariffs, saying that China would take all necessary measures to defend its rights and interests. This means that China will not follow the example of the United States in retaliating against American companies that operate legally in China, but China's countermeasures will surely leave a "deep and unforgettable memory" on the Biden administration.