Capitalmind founder and CEO Deepak Shenoy, in a hat tip to US President Joe Biden’s steep tariff increases on Chinese imports including electric vehicle (EV) batteries, computer chips and medical products, said that India undertook a similar move well.
Shenoy said if the US can’t export to China then it would tariff it out to enhance internal competition. “China actively promoted buying Chinese made things. Eventually if you can't export to China, you will obviously tariff it out till you can compete internally. India did this well,” he said.
He then qualified this post with a follow-up post and said that at least India is “trying to do it well”.
A user responded to Shenoy to say that Chinese imports to India has not dropped despite the customs. “It's a long process of getting more manufacturing of stuff done in India. Eventually we will ease labour laws too,” he responded.
US HIKES TARIFF ON CHINESE PRODUCTS
Biden hiked the tariffs on Chinese products, risking an election-year standoff with Beijing, in an attempt to woo local voters. "American workers can out-work and out-compete anyone as long as the competition is fair, but for too long it hasn't been fair. We’re not going to let China flood our market," Biden said during a speech in the White House Rose Garden before unions and companies.
The tariff hikes have left China miffed, who immediately said they would take measures to defend its interest.
The tariffs put in place by predecessor Donald Trump would stay in place, while new ones are being added by the Biden administration.
The new measures would affect $18 billion in imported Chinese goods including steel and aluminum, semiconductors, electric vehicles, critical minerals, solar cells and cranes, as per the White House.
The United States imported $427 billion in goods from China in 2023 and exported $148 billion, according to the US Census Bureau.