Secretary Yellen warns of Chinese retaliation if new tariffs are applied

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned this Tuesday that China could retaliate if the Biden Administration applies new tariffs on its products.

The Democratic federal government has been studying this option for several weeks, which implies that entry taxes to the North American market could be raised on products from various sectors that come from China.

This possibility was seriously considered when Joe Biden visited industrial sectors, Democratic strongholds, and promised to raise tariffs on China. Specifically, this could affect Chinese metals, which could see their tariffs tripled above the 7% imposed by Trump, and electric cars. According to Reuters, they could also apply to semiconductors, solar equipment and medical supplies.

To the question of whether the United States wants a trade war with China, Yellen responded in her interview that "we are working to stabilize our economic relationship. We do not wish to disengage from China economically, but we do think that the playing field should be fair, and China engages in unfair practices such as massive subsidies."

"President Biden believes that anything we do should be targeted to our concerns and not broad-based and hopefully we will not see a significant Chinese response. But that’s always a possibility," Yellen told Bloomberg Television during an interview.