(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden’s trade and labor leaders traveled to the campaign state of Pennsylvania on Friday to highlight the administration’s use of tariffs and industrial policy as a way to protect steelworkers from unfair competition.
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It was billed as an official visit, not a campaign stop, but the political implications were clear as Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Julie Su, the acting labor secretary, toured the floor of a mill filled with thick plates at a Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. steel mill in Coatesville, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Philadelphia.
“The reason this industry is so important to our country is its critical importance to our lifeblood, the lifeblood of our economy, to creating jobs,” Tai told dozens of Cleveland-Cliffs workers wearing orange hazmat jackets and yellow hard hats in a cave mill. that contribute to building submarines, aircraft carriers and bridges. “It’s about the quality of jobs — whether they’re jobs that lead to a path in the middle class for generations.”
Without naming Vice President Kamala Harris’ Republican opponent, Tai drew a contrast between the Biden administration’s use of tariffs — which last month included finalizing higher tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and semiconductors — and former President Donald Trump’s, which is locked in a tight race. with Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 vote.
“I just want to say here to this crowd, the company and the workers, you understand better than anyone how tariffs can be used constructively to level the playing field, to give us all a fighting chance, and also how tariffs can be used recklessly,” said she.
Trump has promised to impose 60% tariffs on imports from China and 10% tariffs on imports from the rest of the world.
The Surprising Consequences of US Tariffs on China: The Big Take
Su was more direct, saying that Trump always promised to have an “infrastructure week” focusing on investments in the nation’s highways and bridges, but he never did, while Congress under Biden’s presidency passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill as well as major investments in green energy and semiconductor manufacturing .
The subtext of the election less than a month away was unmistakable in a town of about 13,000 people located roughly midway between Philadelphia and Lancaster County, known as Amish country. Polls show a nearly dead race in the state between Harris and Trump.
In April, Biden proposed new tariffs of 25% on Chinese steel and aluminum as part of a series of steps to bolster the US metals sector. The politically palatable pledge was seen as largely symbolic because China currently exports little of either metal to the United States. The USTR has also opened an investigation into China’s shipbuilding industry.
The move of the metals tariff was part of a larger review by Tai’s office of tariffs that Trump first imposed starting in 2018, alleging Chinese theft of intellectual property from American companies and forced technology transfer.
Also hanging in the air was Cleveland-Cliff’s bid to buy Pittsburgh-based US Steel Corp. The United Steel Workers union has publicly supported Cleveland-Cliff’s bid to buy the larger company and keep it in American hands. But US Steel agreed in December to sell itself to Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. for 14.1 billion
The takeover saga has sparked an election-year firestorm in Pennsylvania. Biden, Harris and Trump oppose the sale, while others, including Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, have avoided explicitly taking sides.
Biden was preparing to block Nippon Steel’s takeover, Bloomberg News reported last month, citing people familiar with the matter.
(Updates with comment from labor secretary in seventh section.)
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