00:00Morning, Secretary Yellen, with due respect to this very important topic, I would like
00:05to ask a two-part question about a separate topic that is getting a lot of attention in
00:10Washington these days, and that is tariffs.
00:13First of all, I'm wondering if you agree with the assessment from your predecessor, Larry
00:17Summers, that the proposals from former President Trump for imposing across the board 10 percent
00:23tariffs would be stagflationary.
00:26And then second, on Trump tariff – excuse me, Biden administration tariff policies,
00:32you said two years ago, when the administration was assessing the tariffs put in place in
00:382018 and 2019, that some of those – and I'll quote you – imposed more harm on
00:44U.S. consumers and businesses and aren't very strategic in the sense of addressing
00:49real issues we have with China.
00:52So I'm wondering, when President Biden added to the China tariffs last month, why
00:59did the administration not remove some of the prior tariffs that you clearly were not
01:05comfortable with?
01:06Thank you.
01:07So the tariffs that we put in place against China I do believe are highly strategic.
01:14They're targeted at areas that China is investing very heavily in, to the point where
01:25they have caused huge overcapacity.
01:31And I mean that in areas like electric batteries, solar panels, and other things related to
01:41clean energy and to some extent to semiconductors.
01:45Total capacity in China exceeds global demand, and we really refuse to let our companies
01:53in this strategic, important, burgeoning sector that are critical to creating good jobs in
02:02America and to addressing the climate crisis – we refuse to allow them to be put out
02:09of business by dumping by Chinese – by a coordinated Chinese effort.
02:17And we're not the only country who feel that way.
02:21I would point out that in the G7 summit recent leaders' statement, all of the G7 leaders
02:32acknowledged issues with overcapacity that threaten our domestic industries.
02:41So with respect to the existing tariffs that were not removed, I guess we – I would say
02:50that we see those as – we see that China has not responded by removing – these were
03:03tariffs that were put in place because of unfair trade practices that China was found
03:11guilty of in the 301 action.
03:14And given that China has not done anything really to address those concerns, we thought
03:22it was inappropriate to remove those tariffs.
03:28In connection with the Trump tariffs, these are really across-the-board tariffs, as I
03:37understand it, that would affect all of our trade partners and all of our trade.
03:44And I believe that is a substantial enough program that it would both raise costs to
03:51consumers broadly on all the imports they buy and harm American businesses, many of
03:58whom rely on imported goods to – for their supply chains.
04:05It would significantly raise their costs.
04:07MODERATOR All right, next we're going to go to Rich from Reuters.
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