USTR - EV Trade in Focus

The Administration is concerned about the potential threat posed by China’s growing electric vehicles industry, Brian Janovitz, chief counsel for China Trade Enforcement at the US Trade Representative’s Office said yesterday.

US officials are well aware that Beijing is seeking market dominance in the EV vehicle sector and is going well beyond subsidies in its industrial targeting of the sector, he told a program sponsored by the Washington International Trade Association.

"We are concerned,: said Mr. Janovitz.   "{Autos are} a sector in the United States that has a long history, both autos and auto parts. A lot of good paying jobs, often union jobs, jobs for folks without college degree. So threats to that are taken seriously."

While they are becoming increasingly popular around the world, Chinese-made EVs are being kept out of the US market by a 27.5 percent tariff, the US official noted. Twenty-five percent of that tariff comes from the Section 301 tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration.

But the Administration is closely monitoring the situation, because the tariffs are only one level of defense. “We will obviously continue to assess the challenges,” he said. “We are vigilant to threats, and we won’t take things off the table. “We will take responses as necessary to meet the challenges of protecting workers against unfair trade.”

USTR is currently conducting a review of the Section 301 tariffs. Electric vehicles and batteries will be part of that comprehensive review. Mr. Janovitz said he could not put a time line on completion of the review.

"There's a lot of tariff lines under the existing action that are covered,  and we want to make sure that we get this right," he said.