U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies throughout a listening to earlier than the Monetary Companies and Normal Authorities Subcommittee of the Home Appropriations Committee at Rayburn Home Workplace Constructing on Capitol Hill on March 21, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong | Getty Pictures
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday warned that China is treating the worldwide economic system as a dumping floor for its cheaper clear power merchandise, miserable market costs and squeezing inexperienced manufacturing within the U.S.
“I’m involved about international spillovers from the surplus capability that we’re seeing in China,” Yellen mentioned throughout a speech at a Georgia photo voltaic firm known as Suniva. “China’s overcapacity distorts international costs and manufacturing patterns and hurts American companies and staff, in addition to companies and staff around the globe.”
China has a surplus of solar energy, electrical automobiles and lithium-ion batteries that it will probably ship out to different nations at cheaper costs. That makes it tough for the extra adolescent inexperienced manufacturing industries of the U.S. and elsewhere to compete.
Yellen mentioned she intends to place stress on Chinese language officers about these commerce practices throughout her upcoming go to to China.
“I plan to make it a key concern in discussions throughout my subsequent journey there,” she mentioned. “I’ll press my Chinese language counterparts to take needed steps to handle this concern.”
The secretary’s considerations come because the White Home tries to construct a burgeoning clear power trade domestically with investments from the 2022 Inflation Discount Act, together with different laws just like the CHIPS and Science Act.
Yellen has often touted the positive aspects from these investments, together with at one other latest speech the place she doubled down on the electrical automobile “growth” spurred by the IRA.
However these investments are taking part in catch-up with China’s authorities.
“The Biden Administration additionally acknowledges that these investments are new,” Yellen mentioned Wednesday.
In the meantime, China has been pouring billions into clear power for years, outpacing the remainder of the world within the power transition.
Yellen added that the extra China’s clear power glut interferes with international market costs, the more serious off provide chains for these power sectors might be.
“President Biden is dedicated to doing what we are able to to guard our industries from unfair competitors,” Yellen mentioned.
The Chinese language Embassy in Washington denied the notion that there’s an extra of Chinese language clear power merchandise.
Yellen’s feedback spotlight ongoing U.S.-China commerce pressure at the same time as the 2 nations attempt to regular relations.
President Joe Biden met with Chinese language President Xi Jinping in November as an olive-branch effort to interrupt the ice after years of pressure, marked partially by a tariff struggle launched by former President Donald Trump.
Trump has floated reinstating important tariff ranges on Chinese language merchandise if he wins a second presidential time period.
Within the time for the reason that Biden-Xi assembly, strengthening U.S.-China relations has confirmed a precarious effort resulting from ongoing cybersecurity and commerce considerations.
In February, Biden launched an investigation into Chinese language good vehicles, which he mentioned pose a nationwide safety threat as a result of they hook up with U.S. infrastructure after they drive on American roads.
“China is decided to dominate the way forward for the auto market, together with through the use of unfair practices,” Biden mentioned in a February assertion. “China’s insurance policies might flood our market with its automobiles, posing dangers to our nationwide safety. I am not going to let that occur on my watch.”
