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    Biden Weighs Tariff Rollback to Ease Inflation, Even a Little Bit

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    While lifting some levies on China is unlikely to put a large dent in inflation, administration officials concede they have few other options to address surging prices.WASHINGTON — President Biden is weighing whether to roll back some of the tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump imposed on Chinese goods, in hopes of mitigating the most rapid price gains in 40 years, according to senior administration officials.Business groups and some outside economists have been pressuring the administration to relax at least a portion of the taxes on imports, saying it would be a significant step that the president could take to immediately cut costs for consumers.Yet any action by the administration to lift the tariffs is unlikely to put a large dent in an inflation rate that hit 8.6 percent in May — while the political ramifications could be severe. An influential study this year predicted that a move to lift tariffs could save households $797 a year, but administration officials say the actual effect would most likely be far smaller, in part because there is no chance Mr. Biden will roll back all of the federal government’s tariffs and other protectionist trade measures.The tariff discussion comes at a precarious time for the economy. Persistent inflation has shattered consumer confidence, driven stock markets into bear territory — down 20 percent from their January high — and inflamed fears of a recession as the Federal Reserve moves quickly to raise interest rates.Some administration economists privately estimate the tariff reductions that Mr. Biden is considering would reduce the overall inflation rate by as little as a quarter of a percentage point. Still, in a sign of how big a political problem inflation has become, officials are weighing at least a partial relaxation anyway, in part because the president has few other options.The China tariffs are raising the price of goods for American consumers by essentially adding a tax on top of what they already pay for imported goods. In theory, removing the tariffs could reduce inflation if companies cut — or stopped raising — prices on those products.Mr. Biden has said taming inflation rests mainly with the Federal Reserve, which is trying to cool demand by making money more expensive to borrow and spend. The Fed is expected to raise interest rates on Wednesday, possibly making its biggest increase since 1994, as it tries to get persistent inflation under control. The prospect of big rate increases has spooked Wall Street, which entered bear market territory on Monday before steadying on Tuesday.Any move to tweak the tariffs could carry significant trade-offs. It could encourage companies to keep their supply chains in China, undercutting another White House priority to bring jobs back to America. And it could expose Mr. Biden — and his Democratic allies in Congress — to attacks that he is letting Beijing off the hook when America’s economic relationship with China has become openly hostile, deepening a wedge issue for the midterm elections and the next presidential race.China has yet to live up to the commitments it made as part of the U.S.-China trade deal that Mr. Trump negotiated, including failing to purchase significant amounts of natural gas, Boeing airplanes and other American products. Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on the bulk of products the United States imports from China as part of a pressure campaign aimed at forcing China to change its economic practices. More than two years later, the United States retains a 25 percent tariff on about $160 billion of Chinese products, while another $105 billion, mostly consumer goods, are taxed at 7.5 percent.While Mr. Biden has criticized the way in which Mr. Trump wielded tariffs, he has also acknowledged that China’s economic practices pose a threat to America.Understand Inflation and How It Impacts YouInflation 101: What is inflation, why is it up and whom does it hurt? Our guide explains it all.Greedflation: Some experts contend that big corporations are supercharging inflation by jacking up prices. We take a closer look at the issue. Inflation Calculator: How you experience inflation can vary greatly depending on your spending habits. Answer these seven questions to estimate your personal inflation rate.For Investors: At last, interest rates for money market funds have started to rise. But inflation means that in real terms, you’re still losing money.Business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and economists like Lawrence H. Summers, a Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, have urged the White House to repeal as many tariffs as possible, saying it would help consumers deal with rising prices.Mr. Summers and others have approvingly cited the March study on the issue from economists at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who argued that a “feasible package” of tariff removal — which includes repealing a range of levies and trade programs, not just those applied to China — could cause a one-time reduction in the Consumer Price Index of 1.3 percentage points, amounting to a gain of $797 per American household.In an interview, Mr. Summers said reducing tariffs was “probably the most potent microeconomic or structural action the administration can take to reduce prices and inflationary pressure relatively rapidly.”But even those inside the administration who support easing the tariffs are skeptical that the move would produce anywhere close to the amount of relief that Mr. Summers and others have predicted.“I think some reductions may be warranted and could help to bring down prices of things that people buy that are burdensome,” Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary and an advocate of some tariff rollbacks, told a House committee last week. “I want to make clear, I honestly don’t think tariff policy is a panacea with respect to inflation.”Ms. Yellen met on Tuesday with the board of directors of the National Retail Federation, which has long argued against the tariffs and recently made the case that eliminating them would ease inflation.One key question is whether companies that are given tariff relief would actually pass those savings on in the form of lower prices or choose to absorb them as profits. Consumers have so far continued to pay more for everyday items, a fact that corporations have cited in earnings calls with investors as a reason they can charge more.David French, senior vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation, said the administration had been trying to understand how quickly tariff cuts would translate into pricing changes, and seeking assurances from retailers that any savings would be passed along to American consumers.“I think in the administration’s mind, there’s going to be a price rollback and money is going to come off the price tag,” he said. “I’m not sure you’re going to see a dramatic change like that.”Instead of price decreases, for example, stores may choose to hold off on increasing prices even more. Retailers “will do as much as they can to demonstrate dramatic changes in pricing where possible,” but they still face pent-up pressures in the supply chain in terms of cost, he said.Rising prices have socked Americans across the economy, draining families’ purchasing power and contributing to a steady decline in Mr. Biden’s approval ratings. The Consumer Price Index was up 8.6 percent in May from a year earlier, its fastest growth rate in 40 years. Mr. Biden says he has made fighting inflation his top economic priority.Unloading cargo at the Port of Los Angeles in March. The United States still has a 25 percent tariff on about $160 billion of Chinese products that was imposed by the Trump administration.Coley Brown for The New York TimesLast week, Mr. Biden announced a two-year pause on tariffs on imported solar panels, which could reduce costs for domestic consumers but which effectively pre-empted a Commerce Department investigation into illegal trade practices by Chinese manufacturers.Domestic trade groups, labor leaders and populist Democrats like Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who is locked in a competitive Senate race, have pushed Mr. Biden to keep the tariffs. Mr. Ryan held a news conference on Tuesday urging Mr. Biden not to yield any economic ground to Beijing.Economists disagree on how much inflation relief the administration could get by removing the tariffs.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 5What is inflation? More

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    Biden Administration Begins Trade Dialogue With Taiwan

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    WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Wednesday said that it would pursue negotiations to strengthen trade and technology ties with Taiwan, a move that is aimed at countering China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region and one that is likely to rankle Beijing.The announcement follows the Biden administration’s efforts to build an Asia-Pacific economic bloc, known as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, that includes 13 countries and excludes Taiwan.China claims the island, a self-governing democracy that is critical to global technology supply chains, as an incontestable part of its territory.While Taiwan expressed interest in becoming a full member of the Indo-Pacific framework, that prospect was deemed too controversial by many participating countries.The talks with Taiwan will cover many of the same issues as the framework, from digital trade to reducing red tape for importers and exporters. U.S. officials said the talks, the first of which will be held in Washington at the end of June, would focus on a variety of issues, including opening up trade in agriculture and aligning technological standards.Several topics of the discussion are clearly aimed at addressing mutual complaints over Chinese trade practices. U.S. officials said they would work with Taiwan to eliminate forced labor in global supply chains and develop provisions to compete with nonmarket practices from state-owned enterprises.Negotiations will happen along two tracks, with the United States trade representative handling trade issues and the Commerce Department in charge of technology and investment, including coordination on export controls and measures to secure semiconductor supply chains.“Taiwan is an incredibly important partner to us, especially as it relates to semiconductors,” Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, said in a briefing Tuesday, adding, “We look forward to continuing to deepen our economic ties with Taiwan.”Taiwan has long pushed for deeper trade ties with the United States. In 2020, it eased restrictions on imports of U.S. beef and pork in an effort to entice the United States into formal negotiations. The following year, the United States and Taiwan resumed some trade talks despite Beijing’s opposition.Since then, a global shortage of semiconductors, among Taiwan’s most valuable exports, has further increased the island’s strategic importance.Because the Biden administration’s negotiations with Taiwan would not include so-called market access provisions that require changes in U.S. law, the administration does not anticipate needing congressional approval for any agreement, senior officials said, though they added that they would continue to consult with Congress on the process.Given Taiwan’s contested status, the two sides will also meet unofficially and under the auspices of the American Institute in Taiwan, which is the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei, and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, which represents Taiwan in the United States in the absence of diplomatic recognition.Senior U.S. officials said in a call with reporters Tuesday that while they didn’t include Taiwan among the initial members negotiating the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, going forward they intended to take a flexible approach to participation. More

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    Debate Over Tariffs Reveals Biden’s Difficulties on China Trade

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    Sixteen months into the Biden presidency, U.S. officials are still divided over what to do about a trade legacy left by President Donald J. Trump.WASHINGTON — President Biden’s decision on Monday to try to align with Asian partners to form an economic bloc against China comes at a moment of frustration over his administration’s economic approach to Beijing, with some White House advisers pushing the president to move away from the Trump-era policies he criticized and others arguing that Mr. Biden risks being seen as weak on China if he relents.Some officials have grown frustrated that U.S. trade relations with China are still defined by policies set by President Donald J. Trump, including tariffs imposed on more than $360 billion of products and trade commitments made during a deal the United States and China signed in early 2020.Concerns about the United States’ economic approach to China have taken on new urgency amid rapid inflation. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen and other officials have argued that the full suite of tariffs served little strategic purpose and could be at least partly lifted to ease the financial burden on companies and consumers.But those ideas have met pushback from other senior administration officials, such as some top White House aides, the U.S. trade representative and labor groups. They argue that removing the tariffs — which were put in place to punish China over its economic practices — would constitute unilateral disarmament given that Beijing has yet to address many of the policies that prompted the measures. With the midterm elections looming, some administration officials are worried that removing tariffs would make Democrats vulnerable to political attacks, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials.The business community is also losing patience with the absence of a clear trade strategy nearly a year and a half into Mr. Biden’s presidency. Executives have complained about a lack of clarity, which they say has made it difficult to determine whether to continue investing in China, a critical market.The challenges in figuring out how to confront Chinese trade practices have become harder amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The United States was originally moving toward making changes to its trade relationship with China in early 2022, a senior administration official said, but with Beijing aligning with Moscow, Mr. Biden felt it was prudent to see how events unfolded in Ukraine with respect to the global economy and U.S. allies.Biden administration officials are conflicted over whether to remove tariffs on Chinese goods.Doug Mills/The New York TimesSome elements of the administration’s trade strategy are becoming clearer this week. Mr. Biden announced in Japan on Monday that the United States would begin talks with 12 countries to develop a new economic framework for the Indo-Pacific region. The countries would aim to form a bloc that would provide an early warning system for supply chain issues, encourage industries to decarbonize and offer U.S. businesses reliable Asian partners outside China.The framework would not contain the binding commitments for market access that are typical of most trade deals, which have proved to be a hard sell for many Democrats after the United States withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, President Barack Obama’s signature trade agreement.U.S. officials say their goals for the framework will be ambitious and include raising labor and environmental standards and creating new guidelines for how data flows between countries. But some analysts have questioned whether the framework can encourage those changes without offering Asian countries the U.S. market access that is typically the incentive in trade pacts. And U.S. labor groups are already wary that some commitments could lead to further outsourcing for American industries.The framework also does not try to directly shape trade with China. Many Biden administration officials have concluded that talks with China have proved largely fruitless, as have negotiations at the World Trade Organization. Instead, they have said they would try to confront China by changing the environment around it by rebuilding alliances and investing more in the United States, including through a $1 trillion infrastructure spending bill.Senior U.S. officials hold a similar view as their counterparts in the Trump administration that the world’s dependence on the Chinese economy has given Beijing enormous strategic leverage. A classified China strategy that was largely finished last fall argues that it is important for U.S. security to delink some industries and diversify supply chains, people familiar with the strategy say.The administration was supposed to offer a glimpse of the classified strategy in a major speech laying out economic and security goals for China, which Washington officials and China experts expected to occur last fall. The White House first considered having Mr. Biden deliver the speech but settled on Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.Yet the speech — which revolves around the slogan “Invest, Align and Compete,” according to those familiar with it — has been delayed for several reasons, including the war in Ukraine and Mr. Blinken’s contracting Covid-19 this month. Some China experts in Washington have interpreted the delays as another sign of uncertainty on China policy, but U.S. officials insist that is not true.Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, and other officials have argued against dropping the tariffs.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMr. Blinken is expected to give the China speech shortly after he and Mr. Biden return from Japan, people familiar with the planning said.The speech avoids explicitly addressing how the administration will deal with Mr. Trump’s tariffs, they say. Businesses have long complained that they hurt U.S. companies and their consumers rather than China. That concern has been heightened by the fact that prices are rising at their fastest rate in 40 years, creating a political problem for the White House, which has struggled to explain how it can alleviate soaring costs other than relying on the Federal Reserve.But Republicans and Democrats who want more aggressive policies toward China — and toward some American companies that do business there — would try to draw blood if Mr. Biden eased the tariffs.“We need to rebuild American industry, not reward companies that keep their supply chains in China,” Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said this month after voting against a legislative amendment allowing carve-outs to the tariffs.At a news conference in Japan on Monday, Mr. Biden said he would meet with Ms. Yellen when he returned from his trip to discuss her call to remove some of the China tariffs.“I am considering it,” the president said. “We did not impose any of those tariffs; they were imposed by the previous administration, and they are under consideration.”Public rifts among Biden officials have been rare, but when it comes to tariffs, the debate has spilled into the open.“There are definitely different views in the administration, and they’re surfacing,” said Wendy Cutler, the vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former U.S. trade negotiator. “There are those who think that the tariffs didn’t work and are contributing to inflation. Then you have the trade negotiator side that says: ‘Why would we give them up now? They’re good leverage.’”The discussion over how and when to adjust these tariffs mirrors a bigger debate over whether globalized trade has done more to help or harm Americans, and how the Democratic Party should approach trade.Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative; Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary; Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser; and others have argued against dropping the tariffs. Ms. Yellen, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and other officials have pointed out the benefits to companies and consumers from adjusting them, people familiar with the discussions said.Ms. Yellen has long been a voice of skepticism regarding the tariffs and has grown more frustrated with the pace of progress on trade developments, people familiar with her thinking said. She made the case last week for removing some of the tariffs as a way to offset rising prices.“Some relief could come from cutting some of them,” Ms. Yellen said, explaining that the tariffs were harming consumers and businesses. “There are a variety of opinions, and we really haven’t sorted out yet or come to agreement on where to be on tariffs.”Daleep Singh, a deputy national security adviser, was more blunt in an April 21 webinar. “We inherited these tariffs,” he said, “and while they may have created negotiating leverage, they serve no strategic purpose.”For products that do not strengthen critical supply chains or support national security, “there’s not much of a case for those tariffs being in place,” Mr. Singh said. “Why do we have tariffs on bicycles or apparel or underwear?”Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen has grown more frustrated with the pace of progress on trade developments, according to people familiar with her thinking.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesBut labor leaders, progressive Democrats and some industry representatives have made various arguments for maintaining tough tariffs, with several pointing to data showing that imports from China are not the main drivers of inflation.“For a Democratic president to get rid of tariffs imposed by a Republican and basically give a free handout to the Chinese Communist Party is not something that’s really politically wise in any form,” said Scott N. Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which represents steel companies and workers.Economists also believe the impact from removing the tariffs would be modest. Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University and a former chairman of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, estimates that removing all the China tariffs would shave half a percentage point off the Consumer Price Index, which grew 8.3 percent in April from a year earlier.Still, Mr. Furman said, when it comes to lowering inflation “tariff reduction is the single biggest tool the administration has.”Progressive Democrats like Representative Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, have argued for maintaining tough tariffs on China.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesThe Office of the United States Trade Representative started a statutory review of the tariffs this month and says its approach to analyzing them is on track. “We need to make sure that whatever we do right now, first of all, is effective and, second of all, doesn’t undermine the medium-term design and strategy that we know we need to pursue,” Ms. Tai said in an interview on May 2.Some Biden administration officials appear to favor an outcome that would lift certain tariffs while increasing other trade penalties on China, a process that would take at least several months. That could happen through a separate investigation under the so-called Section 301 process into China’s use of industrial subsidies. More

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    Economic Headwinds Mount as Leaders Weigh Costs of Confronting Russia

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    BRUSSELS — The world economy is heading into a potentially grim period as rising costs, shortages of food and other commodities and Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine threaten to slow economic growth and bring about a painful global slump.Two years after the coronavirus pandemic emerged and left much of the globe in a state of paralysis, policymakers are grappling with ongoing challenges, including clogged supply chains, lockdowns in China and the prospect of an energy crisis as nations wean themselves off Russian oil and gas. Those colliding forces have some economists starting to worry about a global recession as different corners of the world find their economies battered by events.Finding ways to avoid a global slowdown while continuing to exert pressure on Russia for its war in Ukraine will be the primary focus of finance ministers from the Group of 7 nations who are convening in Bonn, Germany, this week.The economic challenges that governments around the globe are facing could begin to chip away at the united front that Western nations have maintained in confronting Russia’s aggression, including sweeping sanctions aimed at crippling its economy and efforts to reduce reliance on Russian energy.Policymakers are balancing delicate trade-offs as they consider how to isolate Russia, support Ukraine and keep their own economies afloat at a moment when prices are rising rapidly and growth is slowing.Central banks around the world are beginning to raise interest rates to help tame rapid inflation, moves that will temper economic growth by raising borrowing costs and could lead to higher unemployment.Global growth is expected to slow to 3.6 percent this year, the International Monetary Fund projected in April, down from the 4.4 percent it forecast before both Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s zero-Covid lockdowns.On Monday, the European Commission released its own revised economic forecast, showing a slowdown in growth to 2.7 percent this year from the 4 percent estimated in its winter report. At the same time, inflation is hitting record levels and is expected to average 6.8 percent for the year. Some Eastern European countries are in for much steeper increases, with Poland, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Lithuania all facing inflation rates in excess of 11 percent.Last week, Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, signaled a possible increase in interest rates in July, the first such move in more than a decade. In a speech in Slovenia, Ms. Lagarde compared Europe to a man “who from fate receives blow on blow.”Eswar Prasad, the former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division, summed up the challenges facing the G7 nations, saying that its “policymakers are caught in the bind that any tightening of screws on Russia by limiting energy purchases worsens inflation and hurts growth in their economies.”“Such sanctions, for all the moral justification underpinning them, are exacting an increasingly heavy economic toll that in turn could have domestic political consequences for G7 leaders,” he added.Still, the United States is expected to press its allies to continue isolating Russia and to deliver more economic aid to Ukraine despite their own economic troubles. Officials are also expected to discuss the merits of imposing tariffs on Russian energy exports ahead of a proposed European oil embargo that the United States fears could send prices skyrocketing by limiting supplies. Policymakers will also discuss whether to press countries such as India to roll back export restrictions on crucial food products that are worsening already high prices.Against this backdrop is the growing urgency to help sustain Ukraine’s economy, which the International Monetary Fund has said needs an estimated $5 billion a month in aid to keep government operations running. The U.S. Congress is close to passing a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine that will cover some of these costs, but Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen has called on her European counterparts to provide more financial help.Finance ministers are expected to consider other measures for providing Ukraine with relief. There is increasing interest in the idea of seizing some of the approximately $300 billion in Russian central bank reserves that the United States and its allies have immobilized and using that money to help fund Ukraine’s reconstruction. Treasury Department officials are considering the idea, but they have trepidations about the legality of such a move and the possibility that it would raise doubts about the United States as a safe place to store assets.Ahead of the G7 meeting this week, American officials saw the economic challenges facing Europe firsthand. During a stop to meet with top officials in Warsaw on Monday, Ms. Yellen acknowledged the toll that the conflict in Ukraine is having on the economy of Poland, where officials have raised interest rates sharply to combat inflation. Poland has absorbed more than three million Ukrainian refugees and has faced a cutoff in gas exports from Russia.“They have to deal with a tighter monetary policy just as countries around the world and the United States are,” Ms. Yellen told reporters. “At a time when Poland is committed to large expenditures to shore up its security, it is a difficult balancing act.”A downturn may be unavoidable in some countries, and economists are weighing multiple factors as they gauge the likelihood of a recession, including a severe slowdown in China related to continuing Covid lockdowns.The European Commission, in its economic report, said the E.U. “is first in line among advanced economies to take a hit,” because of its proximity to Ukraine and its dependence on Russian energy. At the same time, it has absorbed more than five million refugees in less than three months.Deutsche Bank analysts said this week that they thought a recession in Europe was unlikely. By contrast, Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, warned in a note on Monday that with consumer demand and output falling, “Germany’s economy is headed for recession.” Analysts at Capital Economics predicted that Germany, Italy and Britain are likely to face recessions, meaning there is a “reasonable chance” that the broader eurozone will also face one, defined as two consecutive quarters of falling output.Vicky Redwood, senior economic adviser at Capital Economics, warned that more aggressive interest rate increases by central banks could lead to a global contraction.“If inflation expectations and inflation prove more stubborn than we expect, and interest rates need to rise further as a result, then a recession most probably will be on the cards,” Ms. Redwood wrote in a note to clients this week.A bakery in Al Hasakah, Syria. The interruption of wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia is causing food prices to spiral and increasing global hunger, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York TimesThe major culprit is energy prices. In Germany, which has been most dependent on Russian fuel among the major economies in Europe, the squeeze is being acutely felt by its industrial-heavy business sector as well as consumers.Russian gas shipments “underpin the competitiveness of our industry,” Martin Brudermüller, the chief executive of the chemical giant BASF, said at the company’s annual general meeting last month.While calling to decrease its dependence, Mr. Brudermüller nevertheless warned that “if the natural gas supply from Russia were to suddenly stop, it would cause irreversible economic damage” and possibly force a stop in production.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4In Mariupol. More

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    The prospect of lockdowns in Beijing fuels more concerns about supply chain disruptions.

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    The prospect of further lockdowns in China prompted a fresh wave of economic anxiety on Monday as investors and companies whose supply chains run through China contemplated the impact of 70 new virus cases that the Beijing government said it had detected over the weekend.The city government ordered one of its districts to test all 3.5 million of its residents for coronavirus in the coming days, a move that may be a prelude to a larger lockdown in China’s capital city. Shanghai, a major port and business center, has been locked down for roughly a month, part of China’s “zero Covid” strategy. Other Chinese cities both large and small have announced their own restrictions on the movement of residents in a bid to keep the virus from spreading.The lockdowns present yet another challenge for global supply chains that have been stressed by pandemic shutdowns and the war in Ukraine, leading to greater competition for goods and higher prices that are fueling inflation worldwide.While the Chinese authorities have sought to keep factories and especially ports operating by keeping workers on the premises in so-called closed-loop systems, the lockdowns have interrupted shipments and lengthened delivery times for many of the global companies that depend on Chinese factories.Phil Levy, the chief economist at Flexport, a freight forwarder, said in an email that while Beijing is an important city, “it is not at the heart of factory production or supply chain operations.” He said lockdowns there would have a more limited impact than previous restrictions in Shanghai and Guangdong, where ports continued to mostly operate.But the effects would depend on where outbreaks occurred — for example whether they shut down a port — and how long lockdowns persisted, Mr. Levy added. “This is a relatively slow part of the year, but there is plenty of catch-up to be done, and things will soon be due to build. The costs will mount the longer this lasts.”The disruptions that are still unfolding in Shanghai and other Chinese cities are likely to reverberate along global supply chains in the coming months. Andrea Huang, a senior director at Overhaul, which monitors company supply chains, said with lockdowns not expected to ease until early or mid-May, the ripple effects for industries like auto and consumer electronics would extend into June or July.In Shanghai, the local authorities on Friday selected some companies in the automotive, semiconductor and other key industries to restart production, but the vast majority of enterprises remain shuttered.Activity at the port has also slowed. According to data from Project44, a logistics platform, the number of vessels that were berthing at the Shanghai port last week had dropped by about half since the lockdown began, while the number of vessels seeking to call at the nearby port of Ningbo jumped as shipping companies tried to get around restrictions. The time that imported containers were spending in the port had also risen sharply, from 4.6 days on March 28 to 14 days on April 23, the company said, as coronavirus testing requirements for truck drivers limited the ability to get containers in and out of the port.Fears of broader lockdowns weighed on global stocks on Monday, while oil and other commodities also fell in anticipation of lower demand.Elisabeth Waelbroeck-Rocha, chief international economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said that, in addition to disrupting global supply chains and fueling inflation, coronavirus outbreaks and accompanying lockdowns had undermined Chinese economic growth in March and April, making China unlikely to reach its target of 5.5 percent growth in gross domestic product in 2022.The epicenter of the outbreak shifted from Jilin Province in the northeast to Shanghai, a manufacturing base for high-end auto components, but smaller-scale outbreaks in other regions have largely been brought under control, she wrote in a note. More

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    Supply Chains Tainted by Forced Labor in China, Panel Told

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    Human rights activists and others urged the Biden administration to cast a wide net to stop imports of products made with forced labor in Xinjiang.WASHINGTON — Human rights activists, labor leaders and others urged the Biden administration on Friday to put its weight behind a coming ban on products made with forced labor in the Xinjiang region of China, saying slavery and coercion taint company supply chains that run through the region and China more broadly.The law, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, was signed by President Biden in December and is set to go into effect in June. It bans all goods made in Xinjiang or with ties to certain entities or programs that are under sanctions and transfer minority workers to job sites, unless the importer can demonstrate to the U.S. government that its supply chains are free of forced labor.It remains to be seen how stringently the law is applied, and if it ends up affecting a handful of companies or far more. A broad interpretation of the law could cast scrutiny on many products that the United States imports from China, which is home to more than a quarter of the world’s manufacturing. That could lead to more detentions of goods at the U.S. border, most likely delaying product deliveries and further fueling inflation.The law requires that a task force of Biden administration officials produce several lists of entities and products of concern in the coming months. It is unclear how many organizations the government will name, but trade experts said many businesses that relied on Chinese factories might realize that at least some part or raw material in their supply chains could be traced to Xinjiang.“I believe there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of companies that fit the categories” of the law, John M. Foote, a partner in the international trade practice at Kelley Drye & Warren, said in an interview.The State Department estimates that the Chinese government has detained more than one million people in Xinjiang in the last five years — Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Hui and other groups — under the guise of combating terrorism.China denounces these claims as “the lie of the century.” But human rights groups, former detainees, participating companies and the Chinese government itself provide ample documentation showing that some minorities are forced or coerced into working in fields, factories and mines, in an attempt to subdue the population and bring about economic growth that the Chinese government sees as key to stability.Rushan Abbas, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Campaign for Uyghurs, who has written about the detention of her sister in Xinjiang, said at a virtual hearing convened by the task force on Friday that forced labor had become a “profitable venture” for the Chinese Communist Party, and was meant to reduce the overall population in Xinjiang’s villages and towns.“The pervasiveness of the issue cannot be understated,” she said, adding that forced labor was made possible by “the complicity of industry.”Gulzira Auelkhan, an ethnic Kazakh who fled Xinjiang for Texas, said in the hearing that she had been imprisoned for 11 months in Xinjiang alongside ethnic Kazakhs and Uyghurs who were subject to torture and forced sterilization. She also spent two and a half months working in a textile factory making school uniforms for children and gloves, which her supervisors said were destined for the United States, Europe and Kazakhstan, she said through a translator.It is already illegal to import goods made with slave labor. But for products that touch on Xinjiang, the law will shift the burden of proof to companies, requiring them to provide evidence that their supply chains are free of forced labor before they are allowed to bring the goods into the country.Supply chains for solar products, textiles and tomatoes have already received much scrutiny, and companies in those sectors have been working for months to eliminate any exposure to forced labor. By some estimates, Xinjiang is the source of one-fifth of the world’s cotton and 45 percent of its polysilicon, a key material for solar panels.But Xinjiang is also a major provider of other products and raw materials, including coal, petroleum, gold and electronics, and other companies could face a reckoning as the law goes into effect.In the hearing on Friday, researchers and human rights activists presented allegations of links to forced labor programs for Chinese manufacturers of gloves, aluminum, car batteries, hot sauce and other goods.Horizon Advisory, a consultancy in Washington, claimed in a recent report based on open-source documents that the Chinese aluminum sector had numerous “indicators of forced labor,” like ties to labor transfer programs and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which has been a target of U.S. government sanctions for its role in Xinjiang abuses.Xinjiang accounts for about 9 percent of the global production of aluminum, which is used to produce electronics, automobiles, planes and packaging in other parts of China.The State Department estimates that China has detained more than one million people in Xinjiang in the last five years. The Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center has room for at least 10,000 people. Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press“China is an industrial hub for the world,” Emily de La Bruyère, a co-founder of Horizon Advisory, said at the hearing.The Latest on China: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4Marriages and divorces. More

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    Ukraine War and Pandemic Force Nations to Retreat From Globalization

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    WASHINGTON — When the Cold War ended, governments and companies believed that stronger global economic ties would lead to greater stability. But the Ukraine war and the pandemic are pushing the world in the opposite direction and upending those ideas.Important parts of the integrated economy are unwinding. American and European officials are now using sanctions to sever major parts of the Russian economy — the 11th largest in the world — from global commerce, and hundreds of Western companies have halted operations in Russia on their own. Amid the pandemic, companies are reorganizing how they obtain their goods because of soaring costs and unpredictable delays in global supply chains.Western officials and executives are also rethinking how they do business with China, the world’s second-largest economy, as geopolitical tensions and the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights abuses and use of advanced technology to reinforce autocratic control make corporate dealings more fraught.The moves reverse core tenets of post-Cold War economic and foreign policies forged by the United States and its allies that were even adopted by rivals like Russia and China.“What we’re headed toward is a more divided world economically that will mirror what is clearly a more divided world politically,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I don’t think economic integration survives a period of political disintegration.”“Does globalization and economic interdependence reduce conflict?” he added. “I think the answer is yes, until it doesn’t.”Opposition to globalization gained momentum with the Trump administration’s trade policies and “America First” drive, and as the progressive left became more powerful. But the pandemic and President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine have brought into sharp relief the uncertainty of the existing economic order.President Biden warned President Xi Jinping of China on Friday that there would be “consequences” if Beijing gave material aid to Russia for the war in Ukraine, an implicit threat of sanctions. China has criticized sanctions on Russia, and Le Yucheng, the vice foreign minister, said in a speech on Saturday that “globalization should not be weaponized.” Yet China increasingly has imposed economic punishments — Lithuania, Norway, Australia, Japan and South Korea have been among the targets.The result of all the disruptions may well be a fracturing of the world into economic blocs, as countries and companies gravitate to ideological corners with distinct markets and pools of labor, as they did in much of the 20th century.Mr. Biden already frames his foreign policy in ideological terms, as a mission of unifying democracies against autocracies. Mr. Biden also says he is enacting a foreign policy for middle-class Americans, and central to that is getting companies to move critical supply chains and manufacturing out of China.The goal is given urgency by the hobbling of those global links over two years of the pandemic, which has brought about a realization among the world’s most powerful companies that they need to focus on not just efficiency and cost, but also resiliency. This month, lockdowns China imposed to contain Covid-19 outbreaks have once again threatened to stall global supply chains.The Chinese city of Shenzhen was shut down due to Covid concerns last week, threatening the global supply chain.Kin Cheung/Associated PressThe economic impact of such a change is highly uncertain. The emergence of new economic blocs could accelerate a massive reorganization in financial flows and supply chains, potentially slowing growth, leading to some shortages and raising prices for consumers in the short term. But the longer-term effects on global growth, worker wages and supplies of goods are harder to assess.The war has set in motion “deglobalization forces that could have profound and unpredictable effects,” said Laurence Boone, the chief economist of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.For decades, executives have pushed for globalization to expand their markets and to exploit cheap labor and lax environmental standards. China especially has benefited from this, while Russia profits from its exports of minerals and energy. They tap into enormous economies: The Group of 7 industrialized nations make up more than 50 percent of the global economy, while China and Russia together account for about 20 percent.Trade and business ties between the United States and China are still robust, despite steadily worsening relations. But with the new Western sanctions on Russia, many nations that are not staunch partners of America are now more aware of the perils of being economically tied to the United States and its allies.If Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin organize their own economic coalition, they could bring in other nations seeking to shield themselves from Western sanctions — a tool that all recent U.S. presidents have used.“Your interdependence can be weaponized against you,” said Dani Rodrik, a professor of international political economy at Harvard Kennedy School. “That’s a lesson that I imagine many countries are beginning to internalize.”The Ukraine war, he added, has “probably put a nail in the coffin of hyperglobalization.”China and, increasingly, Russia have taken steps to wall off their societies, including erecting strict censorship mechanisms on their internet networks, which have cut off their citizens from foreign perspectives and some commerce. China is on a drive to make critical industries self-sufficient, including for technologies like semiconductors.And China has been in talks with Saudi Arabia to pay for some oil purchases in China’s currency, the renminbi, The Wall Street Journal reported; Russia was in similar discussions with India. The efforts show a desire by those governments to move away from dollar-based transactions, a foundation of American global economic power.For decades, prominent U.S. officials and strategists asserted that a globalized economy was a pillar of what they call the rules-based international order, and that trade and financial ties would prevent major powers from going to war. The United States helped usher China into the World Trade Organization in 2001 in a bid to bring its economic behavior — and, some officials hoped, its political system — more in line with the West. Russia joined the organization in 2012.But Mr. Putin’s war and China’s recent aggressive actions in Asia have challenged those notions.“The whole idea of the liberal international order was that economic interdependence would prevent conflict of this kind,” said Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a research group in Washington. “If you tie yourselves to each other, which was the European model after the Second World War, the disincentives would be so painful if you went to war that no one in their right mind would do it. Well, we’ve seen now that has proven to be false.”“Putin’s actions have shown us that might have been the world we’ve been living in, but that’s not the world he or China have been living in,” she said.The United States and its partners have blocked Russia from much of the international financial system by banning transactions with the Russian central bank. They have also cut Russia off from the global bank messaging system called SWIFT, frozen the assets of Russian leaders and oligarchs, and banned the export from the United States and other nations of advanced technology to Russia. Russia has answered with its own export bans on food, cars and timber.The penalties can lead to odd decouplings: British and European sanctions on Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch who owns the Chelsea soccer team in Britain, prevent the club from selling tickets or merchandise.Ticket sales for Chelsea Football Club games were stopped after Britain and the European Union imposed sanctions on the club’s owner, Roman Abramovich, a Putin ally. Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockAbout 400 companies have chosen to suspend or withdraw operations from Russia, including iconic brands of global consumerism such as Apple, Ikea and Rolex.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Russia’s shrinking force. More

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    Exports to Russia Blocked by U.S. and Its Allies

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    To try to halt the war in Ukraine, the U.S. and its allies have imposed the most sweeping export controls seen in decades on Russia. Now they have to enforce them.WASHINGTON — The United States, in partnership with its allies, has hit Russia with some of the most sweeping export restrictions ever imposed, barring companies across the world from sending advanced technology in order to penalize President Vladimir V. Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.The restrictions are aimed at cutting off the flow of semiconductors, aircraft components and other technologies that are crucial to Russia’s defense, maritime and aerospace industries, in a bid to cripple Mr. Putin’s ability to wage war. But the extent to which the measures hinder Russia’s abilities will depend on whether companies around the globe follow the rules.Enforcing the new restrictions poses a significant challenge as governments try to police thousands of companies. But the task could be made easier because the United States is acting in concert with so many other countries.The European Union, Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and South Korea have joined the United States in imposing their own restrictions. And governments including Singapore and Taiwan, a major global producer of semiconductors, have indicated they will support the rules.“Because we have the full cooperation and alignment with so many countries, it makes enforcement a lot easier,” Gina Raimondo, the U.S. secretary of commerce, said in an interview. “Every country is going to be doing enforcement.”“That’s part of the power, if you will, of having so much collaboration,” she added.Officials from the Commerce Department, which is in charge of enforcing the U.S. rules, have already begun digging through shipping containers and detaining electronics, aircraft parts and other goods that are destined for Russia. On March 2, federal agents detained two speedboats at the Port of Charleston valued at $150,000 that were being exported to Russia, according to senior U.S. officials.To look for any potential violators, federal agents will be combing through tips from industry sources and working with Customs and Border Protection to find anomalies in export data that might point to shipments to Russia. They are also reaching out to known exporters to Russia to get them on board with the new restrictions, speaking to about 20 or 30 companies a day, U.S. officials said.Their efforts extend beyond U.S. borders. On March 3, Commerce Department officials spoke to a gathering of 300 businesspeople in Beijing about how to comply with the new restrictions. U.S. officials have also been coordinating with other governments to ensure that they are taking a tough stance on enforcement, senior U.S. officials said.Emily Kilcrease, director of the Energy, Economics and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said that the level of allied cooperation in forging the export controls was “completely unprecedented,” and that international coordination would have an important upside.“The allied countries will be active partners in enforcement efforts, rather than the United States attempting to enforce its own unilateral rules extraterritorially,” she said.It remains to be seen how effective the rules are in degrading Russia’s military capability or dissuading its aggression against Ukraine. But in their initial form, the broad scope of the measures looks like a victory for the multilateralism that President Biden promised to restore.Mr. Biden entered office pledging to mend ties with Europe and other allies that had been alienated by former President Donald J. Trump’s “America first” approach. A key part of the argument was that the United States could exert more pressure on countries like China when it was not acting alone.That approach has been particularly important for export controls, which experts argue can do more harm than good when imposed by only one country — a criticism that was sometimes leveled at the export controls the Trump administration issued on China.“Because we have the full cooperation and alignment with so many countries, it makes enforcement a lot easier,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe Russian invasion of Ukraine has unified Western governments like few issues before. But even with countries eager to penalize Russia, coordinating restrictions on a vast array of complex technologies among more than 30 governments was not simple. The Commerce Department held more than 50 discussions with officials from other countries between the end of January and Feb. 24, when the controls were announced, as they hashed out the details, senior U.S. officials said.Much of that effort fell to Matthew S. Borman, a three-decade employee of the Commerce Department, who in late January began near-daily conversations with the European Commission and other countries.In mid-February, Mr. Borman and a senior aerospace engineer flew to Brussels for meetings with Peter Sandler, the European director general of trade, and other staff. As a “freedom convoy” protesting coronavirus restrictions attempted to roll into Brussels, they worked from early in the morning until late in the night amid reams of paper and spreadsheets of complex technological descriptions.Each country had its own byzantine regulations, and its own interests, to consider. The European Commission had to consult the European Union’s 27 member countries, especially tech powers like Germany, France, the Netherlands and Finland, on which products could be cut off. Officials debated whether to crack down on the Russian oil industry, at a time of soaring gas prices and inflation.As Russia’s neighbors, the Europeans wanted to ensure that Russia still had access to certain goods for public safety, like nuclear reactor components to avoid a Chernobyl-style meltdown. At least one country insisted that auto exports to Russia should continue, a senior administration official said.The breakthrough came when American officials offered a compromise. The Biden administration planned to issue a rule that would bar companies anywhere around the world from exporting certain products to Russia if they were made using American technology. But those measures would not apply in countries that joined the United States and Europe in issuing their own technological restrictions on Russia.In an interview, Mr. Borman said that American allies had historically been concerned with the extraterritorial reach of U.S. export controls, and that the exclusions for countries that imposed their own rules “was really the key piece.”The Russia-Ukraine War and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6Rising concerns. More