Candidate Biden was right on trade. President Biden is wrong.
After an eight-month review of the United States’ trade policies toward China, the Biden administration has concluded that Donald Trump was right and Joe Biden was wrong. On the campaign trail, Biden relentlessly attacked Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods, calling them “disastrous.” Now, he has adopted those same “disastrous” policies.
But candidate Biden was right: Trump’s tariffs did not work. China’s behavior did not change, high-wage jobs did not come back, and while the U.S. deficit with China decreased, this caused the overall U.S. trade deficit to go up. Beijing responded in kind, slapping its own tariffs on American goods. One 2020 study found that “approximately 100 percent” of the costs of the U.S. tariffs against Chinese goods were paid for by American consumers and businesses. A 2021 study found that the tariffs cost the U.S. economy up to 245,000 jobs.