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    European Steel Plan Shows Biden’s Bid to Merge Climate and Trade Policy

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    A potential agreement on steel trade provides the clearest look yet at how the Biden administration plans to implement a trade policy that is both protectionist and progressiveWASHINGTON — President Biden has promised to use trade policy as a tool to mitigate climate change. This weekend, the administration provided its first look at how it plans to mesh those policy goals, saying the United States and the European Union would try to curb carbon emissions as part of a trade deal covering steel and aluminum.The arrangement, which American and European leaders aim to introduce by 2024, would use tariffs or other tools to encourage the production and trade of metals made with fewer carbon emissions in places including the United States and European Union, and block dirtier steel and aluminum produced in countries including China.If finalized, it would be the first time a U.S. trade agreement includes specific targets on carbon emissions, said Ben Beachy, the director of the Sierra Club’s Living Economy program.“No U.S. trade deal to date has even mentioned climate change, much less included binding climate standards,” said Mr. Beachy.The announcement was short on details, and negotiations with European leaders are likely to face multiple roadblocks. But it provided an outline for how the Biden administration hopes to knit together its concerns about trade and climate and work with allies to take on a recalcitrant China, at a time when progress on multicountry trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization has stalled.“The U.S. leads the world in our clean steel technology,” Gina Raimondo, the secretary of commerce, said in an interview on Monday. She said the United States would work with allies “to preference cleaner steel, which will create an incentive to make more investments in technology,” resulting in fewer carbon emissions and more jobs.In the same interview, Katherine Tai, the United States Trade Representative, said the potential agreement would restrict market access for countries that don’t meet certain carbon standards, or that engage in nonmarket practices and contribute to global overcapacity in the steel sector — accusations that are often levied at China.The effort would seek to build “a global arrangement that promotes not just fair trade in steel but also pro-climate and responsible trade in steel,” Ms. Tai said.Kevin Dempsey, the president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, said at an industry forum in Washington on Tuesday that the arrangement would be “positive for the U.S. industry,” which has the lowest carbon intensity per ton of steel of the major steel-producing countries.China accounts for nearly 60 percent of global steel production. Its use of a common steel-production method causes more than twice as much climate pollution as does the same technology in the United States, according to estimates by Global Efficiency Intelligence.In its announcement on Saturday, the Biden administration also said it had reached a deal to ease the tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump had imposed on European metals while the governments work toward the carbon accord.The United States would replace the 25 percent tariff on European steel and a 10 percent tariff on European aluminum with a so-called tariff-rate quota. In return, the European Union would drop the retaliatory tariffs it imposed on other American products, like bourbon and motorcycles.Under the new terms, 3.3 million metric tons of European steel would be allowed to enter the United States duty-free each year, with any steel above that volume subject to a 25 percent tariff.European producers would be allowed to ship 18,000 metric tons of unwrought aluminum, which often comes in the form of ingots, and 366,000 metric tons of wrought or semifinished aluminum into the United States each year, while volumes above that would be charged a 10 percent tariff, the commerce department said.To qualify for zero tariffs, the steel must be entirely made in the European Union — a provision designed to keep cheaper steel from countries including China and Russia from finding a backdoor into the United States via Europe.Supporters of free trade have criticized the Biden administration for relying on the same protectionist trade measures used by the Trump administration, which deployed both tariffs and quotas to protect domestic metal makers.Jake Colvin, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said the announcement would ratchet down trade tensions between the United States and Europe. But he called the trade barriers “an unwelcome form of managed trade” that would add costs and undermine American competitiveness.Ms. Tai said the administration had made a deliberate choice not to heed calls “for the president to just undo everything that the Trump administration had done on trade.”Mr. Biden’s plan, she said, “is that we formulate a worker-centered trade policy. And that means not actually going back to the way things were in 2015 and 2016, challenging us to do trade in a different way from how we’ve done it earlier, but also, critically, to challenge us to do trade in a way different from how the Trump administration did.”A factory in southern China that makes steel parts. The trade proposal would block dirtier steel and aluminum produced in countries including China.The New York TimesThe focus on carbon emissions differs from that of the Trump administration, which rejected any attempts to negotiate on carbon mitigation and withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change.But negotiations with Europe will face challenges, among them developing a common methodology for measuring how much carbon is emitted as certain products are made. Still, the announcement suggests that the United States and Europe might be ready to work toward a collaborative approach on lowering carbon emissions, despite past differences on how the problem should be addressed.European leaders have long advocated an explicit price on the carbon dioxide that companies emit while making their products. In July, the European Union proposed a carbon border adjustment mechanism that would require companies to pay for carbon emissions produced outside Europe, to discourage manufacturers from evading Europe’s restrictions on pollution by moving abroad.An explicit tax on carbon has met with more resistance in the United States, where some politicians want to update regulatory requirements or put the onus on companies to invest in cleaner production technology.Todd Tucker, the director of governance studies at the Roosevelt Institute, said the latest announcement suggested that the European Union may be “a little bit more flexible” on how the United States and other partners would go about lowering emissions. Mr. Biden’s reconciliation bill, for example, contains a proposal for a “green bank” that could provide financing for firms to transition to cleaner technologies, he said.“If the U.S. ends up achieving decarbonization through more of an investments and industrial-policy approach, it seems like they’re OK with that,” Mr. Tucker said.Though the earliest negotiations over carbon emissions in the steel sector involve the European Union, the Biden administration says it wants to quickly extend the partnership to other countries.In twin announcements on Sunday, the Department of Commerce said it had begun close consultations with Japan and the United Kingdom “on bilateral and multilateral issues related to steel and aluminum,” with a focus on “the need for like-minded countries to take collective action.”Both Japan and the United Kingdom still face a 25 percent tariff on steel exports to the United States imposed by Mr. Trump.The talks suggest a template for how the Biden administration will try to engage allies to counter China’s growing economic heft and make progress on goals like climate and workers rights.The administration has rejected Mr. Trump’s “America First” approach to trade, saying the United States needs to work with like-minded countries. But they have also acknowledged that the inefficiency of negotiations at the World Trade Organization, and distanced themselves from broader, multicountry trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.The announcements suggest that the Biden administration may not see comprehensive trade deals as the most effective way to accomplish many of its goals, but rather, industry-specific agreements among a limited number of democratic, free-market countries. That approach is similar to the cooperation the United States announced with the European Union for the civil aircraft industry in June.Ms. Raimondo said the agreement to ease the tariffs on the European Union was a “very significant achievement” that would help to alleviate supply chain problems and lower prices for companies that use steel and aluminum to make other products.“It’s all kind of a table setter to a global arrangement, whereby we work with our allies all over the world over the next couple of years,” she said. More

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    Biden Rolls Back Trump's Metal Tariffs On European Union

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    The deal, which comes as U.S. and E.U. allies meet in Rome, will keep some trade protections in place in a nod to metalworking unions that supported President Biden.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced on Saturday that it had reached a deal to roll back tariffs on European steel and aluminum, an agreement that officials said would lower costs on goods like cars and washing machines, reduce carbon emissions, and help get supply chains moving again.The deal, which comes as President Biden and other world leaders meet at the Group of 20 summit in Rome, is aimed at easing trans-Atlantic trade tensions that had worsened under former President Donald J. Trump, whose administration initially imposed the tariffs. Mr. Biden has made clear he wants to repair relations with the European Union, but the agreement also appears carefully devised to avoid alienating U.S. labor unions and manufacturers that have supported Mr. Biden.It leaves some protections in place for the American steel and aluminum industry, by transforming the current 25 percent tariff on European steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum into a so-called tariff rate quota, an arrangement in which higher levels of imports are met with higher duties.The agreement will put an end to retaliatory tariffs that the European Union had imposed on American products including orange juice, bourbon and motorcycles. It will also avert additional tariffs on American products that were set to go into effect on Dec. 1.“We fully expect this agreement will provide relief in the supply chain and drive down cost increases as we lift the 25 percent tariffs and increase volume,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.Ms. Raimondo, in a briefing with reporters, said the deal had allowed the United States and European Union to establish a framework to take carbon intensity into account when producing steel and aluminum, which could allow for them to manufacture “cleaner” products than the ones produced in China.A steel mill in Farrell, Pa. A new accord is said to allow the E.U. to ship 3.3 million metric tons of steel into the U.S. duty-free and impose a 25 percent tariff after that.Aaron Josefczyk/Reuters“China’s lack of environmental standards is part of what drives down their costs, but it’s also a major contributor to climate change,” Ms. Raimondo said.The tariffs were imposed on dozens of countries, including those in the European Union, after the Trump administration determined that foreign metals posed a national security threat. Mr. Biden vowed to work more closely with Europe, which he has described as a partner in efforts to combat climate change and compete against authoritarian economies like China. But he has been under pressure from American metal manufacturers and labor unions not to entirely remove the trade barriers, which have helped protect the domestic industry from a glut of cheap foreign metal.The deal marks the final step for the Biden administration in dismantling Mr. Trump’s Trans-Atlantic trade war. In June, U.S. and European officials announced an end to a 17-year dispute over aircraft subsidies given to Airbus and Boeing. In late September, the United States and Europe announced a new partnership for trade and technology, and earlier this month they came to an agreement on global minimum taxes.Under the new terms, the European Union will be allowed to ship 3.3 million metric tons of steel annually into the United States duty-free, while any volume above that would be subject to a 25 percent tariff, according to people familiar with the arrangement. Products that were granted exclusions from the tariffs this year would also temporarily be exempt.The agreement will also place restrictions on products that are finished in Europe but use steel from China, Russia, South Korea and other countries. To qualify for duty-free treatment, steel products must be entirely made in the European Union.Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser, said that the deal removed “one of the biggest bilateral irritants in the U.S.-E.U. relationship.”Metal unions in the United States praised the deal, which they said would limit European exports to historically low levels. The United States imported 4.8 million metric tons of European steel in 2018, a level that fell to 3.9 million in 2019 and 2.5 million in 2020.In a statement, Thomas M. Conway, president of the United Steelworkers International, said the arrangement would “ensure U.S. domestic industries remain competitive and able to meet our security and infrastructure needs.”Mark Duffy, the chief executive of the American Primary Aluminum Association, said that the deal would “maintain the effectiveness” of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, “while allowing us to support continued investment in the U.S. primary aluminum industry and create more American aluminum jobs.”He said the arrangement would support the American aluminum industry by limiting duty-free imports to historically low levels.Other countries remain subject to U.S. tariffs or quotas, including Britain, Japan and South Korea. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has opposed the metal tariffs, said the deal did not go far enough.Myron Brilliant, the executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the agreement would offer “some relief for American manufacturers suffering from soaring steel prices and shortages, but further action is needed.” “The U.S. should drop the unfounded charge that metal imports from the U.K., Japan, Korea and other close allies represent a threat to our national security — and drop the tariffs and quotas as well,” he said.Katie Rogers More

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    U.S. Signals Little Thaw in Trade Relations With China

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    The Biden administration said it would not immediately remove the Trump administration’s tariffs and would require that Beijing uphold its trade commitments.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration offered its strongest signal yet that the United States’ combative economic approach toward China would continue, with senior administration officials saying that President Biden would not immediately lift tariffs on Chinese goods and that he would hold Beijing accountable for trade commitments agreed to during the Trump administration.The comments, in a call with reporters on Sunday, provided one of the first looks at how the Biden administration plans to deal with a rising economic and security threat from China. They indicated that while Mr. Biden may have criticized the Trump administration’s aggressive approach, his White House will continue trying to counter China’s economic threats with trade barriers and other punitive measures.That includes requiring China to uphold commitments it agreed to as part of the Phase 1 trade deal that it signed with the United States in January 2020. So far, China is on pace to fall short of its 2021 purchasing commitments by more than 30 percent, after falling short by more than 40 percent last year, according to Chad P. Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who tracks the purchases.However, in a move that would offer some relief to businesses that import Chinese products, the administration said it would re-establish an expired process that gives some companies a reprieve by excluding them from the tariffs. Trade officials would make those decisions based on the priorities of the Biden administration, officials said, without elaborating further.Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative, is expected to begin talking with her Chinese counterparts in the coming days about the country’s failure to live up to its agreements, senior administration officials said. Officials did not rule out the possibility of imposing further tariffs on China if talks with did not produce the desired results, warning Beijing that they would use all available tools to defend the United States from state-directed industrial policies that harm its workers.China denies that it has failed to live up to the Phase 1 agreement, contending that the pandemic has created unique circumstances.The Biden administration has been drawing up an investigation into China’s use of subsidies under Section 301 of U.S. trade law. If it is carried out, that inquiry could result in additional tariffs on China, according to people familiar with the plans.In excerpts that were released on Monday morning in Washington from a planned speech later in the morning, Ms. Tai said that, “For too long, China’s lack of adherence to global trading norms has undercut the prosperity of Americans and others around the world.”“We continue to have serious concerns with China’s state-centered and nonmarket trade practices that were not addressed in the Phase 1 deal,” she added.Last week, Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, pointed to China’s blocking of its airlines from buying “tens of billions of dollars” of products from Boeing.“The Chinese need to play by the rules,” Ms. Raimondo said in an interview with NPR last week. “We need to hold their feet to the fire and hold them accountable.”The Biden administration has given no indication that it plans to lower the hefty tariffs that President Donald J. Trump placed on Chinese goods anytime soon, despite protests by economists and some businesses that they have dragged on the U.S. economy.Mr. Biden has frequently criticized Mr. Trump’s 18-month trade war with China as erratic and counterproductive. But more than eight months into his presidency, Mr. Biden has announced few policies that differentiate his approach. In addition to the tariffs on Chinese goods, the president has maintained restrictions on the ability of Chinese companies to access U.S. technology and expanded the list of Chinese officials under sanctions by the United States for their role in undermining Hong Kong’s democratic institutions.Mr. Biden’s hard-line approach to China comes at a moment of extraordinary tension between the world’s largest and second largest economies, and remarkably little interchange between their governments.President Biden met with the leaders of Australia, India and Japan at the White House last month, aiming to put the major democracies of the region in agreement on how to deal with China.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesIn the past month, the United States has announced a new deal to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, an effort to push back on Beijing’s military modernization and its claims of territory in the South China Sea. Mr. Biden also met at the White House with the leaders of Japan, Australia and India, aiming to put the major democracies of the region in accord on how to deal with China’s influence and authoritarianism. And the United States and China are both seeking technological advantage, even if it means cutting off each other’s access to key goods.China, having repressed dissent in Hong Kong and essentially wiped away its guarantees to Britain about keeping its hands off the territory for decades, is now regularly threatening Taiwan. The United States formally protested some of China’s actions on Sunday, after dozens of military aircraft flew on Friday and Saturday into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, although not over the island itself. While U.S. officials do not expect Beijing to move against Taiwan, they are increasingly concerned about the possibility of an accidental conflict.Trade was one area — along with climate — where mutual interest might steer the two countries to some agreements, even as they compete in other areas. But it is unclear whether they can find a way to reach an accord amid other tensions.Mr. Trump’s deal halted the trade war, but it did not put an end to economic hostilities. China still maintains tariffs on 58.3 percent of its exports from the United States; the United States imposes tariffs on 66.4 percent of the products it brings in from China, according to Mr. Bown.Some Biden officials, like many economists, have made clear that they see the tariffs as counterproductive and taking a toll on American consumers and manufacturers as well as Chinese businesses. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in July that the China deal had “hurt American consumers.”Asked if they would consider additional tariffs on China, officials said the Biden administration would not be taking any tools off the table. The administration planned to use the enforcement mechanism established in the trade deal, they said, which would allow the United States to resort to further tariffs if consultations were unsuccessful.In a planned speech on Monday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, Ms. Tai is set to highlight how some of Beijing’s unfair practices have affected U.S. workers and how the United States is building global coalitions to counter them.The Biden administration could face an even more difficult task in reaching any trade agreement with China than the Trump administration did four years ago. Republican lawmakers are ready to pounce on any perceived weakness on China from Mr. Biden, and diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries have deteriorated.“Against the backdrop of worldwide opposition against Cold War and division, the United States blatantly violated its policy statement of not seeking a new Cold War and ganged up to form an Anglo-Saxon clique,” Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, said on Sept. 28 in response to the Australian submarine deal.The U.S. release of Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive who had been detained in Canada at the request of the United States, and China’s subsequent release of two Canadians and two Americans, have done little to cool tensions.Mr. Trump’s tariffs have discouraged imports of some Chinese goods, but exports to the United States have grown strongly through the coronavirus pandemic, as Americans purchased workout equipment, furniture, toys and other products during lockdown.China’s leaders have also doubled down on the kinds of domestic industrial subsidies that the United States has long objected to. They have greatly expanded programs, started more than a decade ago, aimed at eliminating their need to buy computer chips and passenger jets — two of the United States’ main exports to China — among other industrial products.The Biden administration has been exploring ways to persuade China to limit its broad industrial subsidies, but that will be difficult. The George W. Bush, Obama and Trump administrations all tried with little success for ways to coax China to abandon its long-running use of subsidies to domestic producers as a tool to wean itself from any reliance on imports.China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has called for making sure that other countries remain dependent on China for key goods, so that they will not threaten to halt their own sales to China. The United States has done so over issues like surveillance, forced labor and the crackdown on democracy advocates in Hong Kong.“The dependence of the international industrial chain on our country has formed a powerful countermeasure and deterrent capability for foreign parties to artificially cut off supply,” Mr. Xi said in a speech last year.In the call on Sunday, Biden administration officials acknowledged that talks might not persuade China to abandon its increasingly authoritarian, state-centered approach. So instead, they said, the administration’s primary emphasis will be on building the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, working with allies and diversifying markets to limit the impact of Beijing’s harmful trade practices.Keith Bradsher reported from Shanghai, and More

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    U.S. and Europe Announce New Trade Cooperation, but Disputes Linger

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    A new trade and technology partnership aims to counter China, but tensions over issues like metal tariffs remain.WASHINGTON — The United States and the European Union took a step this week toward a closer alliance by announcing a new partnership for trade and technology, but tensions over a variety of strategic and economic issues are still simmering in the background.The establishment of the Trade and Technology Council, which aims to establish a united front on trade practices and sophisticated technologies, is a significant test of whether President Biden can fulfill his pledge to mitigate trans-Atlantic tensions that soared under President Donald J. Trump. The Biden administration has long described Europe as a natural partner in a broader economic and political confrontation with China, and it criticized the Trump administration for picking trade fights that alienated European governments.But while officials on both sides say trans-Atlantic relations have been improving, the U.S.-Europe reset has been rockier than anticipated.The inaugural meeting of the Trade and Technology Council in Pittsburgh this week was nearly scuttled after the Biden administration said it would share advanced submarine technology with Australia, a deal that enraged the French government.Europeans say they have been frustrated by a lack of consultation with the Biden administration on a range of issues, including the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. And officials face a difficult negotiation in the coming weeks over metal tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed globally in 2018.Europeans have said they will impose retaliatory tariffs on other U.S. products as of Dec. 1 unless Mr. Biden rolls back a 25 percent tax on European steel and a 10 percent duty on aluminum.“The E.U. initially viewed the Biden administration as a ‘breath of fresh air’ but is now increasingly wondering how much Biden will differ from Trump,” Stephen Olson, a senior research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation and a former U.S. trade negotiator, wrote in a recent analysis. “Prospects for a U.S.-E.U. ‘united front’ have been overblown from the start.”Valdis Dombrovskis, the European commissioner for trade, said in a round table with journalists in Washington on Tuesday that the two sides had been doing intensive work on the issue. They were aiming to reach an agreement by early November to have enough time to avert European countertariffs, he said.The European Union was disappointed with the Biden administration’s handling of the Australian submarine agreement, Mr. Dombrovskis added, but “occasional divergences” should not disrupt their strategic alliance.“Of course, as allies and friends, we do not always agree on everything, and we have seen this in recent weeks,” Mr. Dombrovskis said, adding that there had been more engagement from the Biden administration than the Trump administration.In meetings this week, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary; Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative; and their European counterparts pledged to collaborate on a variety of 21st-century issues, such as controlling exports of advanced technology, screening investments for national security threats and offering incentives to manufacture chips in Europe and the United States as a semiconductor shortage continues.Though official documents did not explicitly mention China, the partnership is clearly aimed in part at countering the country’s authoritarian practices. Among other goals, the council promised to combat arbitrary and unlawful technological surveillance and the trade-distorting practices of nonmarket economies.U.S. and European officials in June announced an agreement ending a 17-year dispute over aircraft subsidies given to Airbus and Boeing.But a lingering fight over Mr. Trump’s metal tariffs on imports from Europe and elsewhere could prove harder to resolve. Mr. Biden is under intense pressure to maintain barriers to imports from domestic steel makers and labor unions that supported his campaign.In a virtual round table on Thursday, industry executives and labor leaders said that cheap steel produced in Europe could still damage the U.S. industry.While China is best known for subsidizing its steel industry, European makers have also been major recipients of government subsidies, giving them an unfair advantage over U.S. competitors, said Lourenco Goncalves, the chief executive of Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., an American iron ore mining company.He urged the Biden administration to negotiate from a “position of strength.”“We need the White House, and we need the ones on the front line not to be affected by sweet talk, particularly from the Europeans,” Mr. Goncalves said. “I believe that the friends are a lot worse than the enemies.”U.S. officials made an offer to their European counterparts this summer to transform the current 25 percent tariff on European steel into a so-called tariff-rate quota, an arrangement in which higher levels of imports are met with higher duties, according to a person familiar with the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters.The Europeans have argued for a more flexible arrangement, and discussions are expected to intensify over the next three weeks, the person said.Thomas Kaplan More

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    Businesses Push Biden to Develop China Trade Policy

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    Seven months into a new administration, companies want the White House to drop tariffs on Chinese goods and provide clarity about a critical trade relationship.WASHINGTON — More than seven months into the Biden administration, American businesses say they are growing increasingly frustrated by the White House’s approach to China, with confrontational policies imposed during the Trump era still in place and President Biden offering little clarity about economic engagement with the world’s second-largest economy.The relationship between the two economic superpowers remains deeply fractured. American import duties still exist on roughly $360 billion worth of Chinese goods, and almost all of the exemptions that shielded more than 2,000 products from those tariffs have expired. A thicket of export controls and bans are still in place, leaving U.S. technology giants such as Qualcomm, Intel and Google in the lurch over how to approach the Chinese market and offering little hope that the decoupling of the world’s two largest economies will be reversed anytime soon.To the dismay of some American business leaders, Mr. Biden has amplified some of the Trump administration’s punitive moves. In July, the Biden administration expanded the list of Chinese officials under sanctions by the United States for their role in undermining Hong Kong’s democratic institutions. In June, the president issued an executive order adding more Chinese companies to a prohibition on American investments in Chinese firms that have links to the country’s military or that sell surveillance technology used to repress dissent or religious minorities.Yet Mr. Biden and his top advisers have yet to elucidate how they view economic relations with Beijing, saying they will make the administration’s approach known once a broad review of China trade policy concludes. But the review has stretched on for months with no public timeline for its conclusion.As a result, businesses are lobbying heavily for the tariffs to be removed, which would make it easier for them to rely on factories in China instead of making investments in the United States or elsewhere. And they want assurances that they can do business with a financially important market.“There has been frustration for the business community at the lack of concrete China economic policy,” said Charles Freeman, the senior vice president for Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “It’s not as if this crowd came in without any experience or any preconceived thinking about China.”The future of the U.S. trade relationship with China is one of the biggest global economic questions confronting Mr. Biden and his advisers. China has thrown huge resources behind its economic ambitions and plans to dominate cutting-edge industries like artificial intelligence and robotics by providing government subsidies to Chinese firms and using other tactics, including espionage. While the Trump administration signed an initial trade deal with China that included purchase commitments for agricultural and other goods, the agreement failed to address a number of major concerns, including China’s state-owned enterprises and industrial subsidies.During his White House bid, Mr. Biden assailed President Donald J. Trump over his trade war and promised to enlist allies to counter China over its trade practices. Since taking office, Mr. Biden has resolved a longstanding trade spat with the European Union and persuaded European officials to adopt a more assertive trade policy toward China this year. And he has pitched his infrastructure plan as a way to counter Beijing, saying it would “put us in a position to win the global competition with China in the upcoming years.”But the administration has said little about whether it intends to restart economic talks and address outstanding issues, including tariffs. At times, officials have offered somewhat discordant views.Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told The New York Times this summer that tariffs had harmed American consumers, but she has also warned that Chinese subsidies for exporters pose a challenge for the United States. The United States trade representative, Katherine Tai, has described the tariffs as providing leverage..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Asked on Wednesday about the administration’s review of the tariffs, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said, “I don’t have any timeline for you on when that review will be completed.”Business impatience with the administration’s approach is mounting. Corporate leaders say they need clarity about whether American companies will be able to do business with China, which is one of the biggest and fastest-growing markets. Business groups say their members are being put at a competitive disadvantage by the tariffs, which have raised costs for American importers.“We should be doing everything we can to increase China’s use and dependence on American technology products,” Patrick Gelsinger, the chief executive of Intel, said in an interview last week. The administration is “struggling to lay out a framework for how they have a policy-driven engagement with China,” he said.“To me, just saying, ‘Let’s be tough on China,’ that’s not a policy, that’s a campaign slogan,” he added. “It’s time to get to the real work of having a real policy of trade relationships and engagement around business exports and technology with China.”In early August, a group of influential U.S. business groups sent a letter to Ms. Yellen and Ms. Tai urging the administration to restart trade talks with China and cut tariffs on imported Chinese goods.“The main kind of dilemma that companies face right now is just uncertainty,” said Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council, which organized the letter. “Will the tariffs remain in place? Are they in place in perpetuity? What is the exclusion process to request an exemption from the tariffs? Nobody knows.”Mr. Allen said his group had organized the letter because it wanted to make sure that businesses’ views, in addition to those of labor and environmental groups, would be taken into account during the Biden administration’s China review.“Many find it ironic that the Biden administration is following so closely the playbook laid down by the Trump administration on China,” he said.Other organizations that signed the letter included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable as well as groups representing sectors of the economy with close business ties to China, such as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Semiconductor Industry Association and the American Farm Bureau Federation.“We’re now dealing with all these other supply chain disruption issues that are costing companies millions of dollars,” said Jonathan Gold, the vice president for supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, which also signed the letter and represents a sector that has become heavily dependent on imports from China. “To have the tariffs on top of that is difficult for planning purposes.”On Tuesday, the National Association of Manufacturers sent a letter to the Biden administration urging it to “act as quickly as possible to finalize and publicize” a China strategy.Businesses of all sizes have been waiting for Mr. Biden to change course from Mr. Trump’s trade policies. Arnold Kamler, the chief executive of Kent International, a bicycle wholesaler and manufacturer, said the 25 percent tariffs on bicycle imports from China had been a major drain on the cash flow of his business, forcing him to borrow more from his bank. For the last two years, he has been passing on the cost of the additional import duties to retailers.“Honestly, we were hopeful that the Biden administration would realize that the trade war didn’t work,” Mr. Kamler said.Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, has refrained from offering a preview of what steps the Biden administration may seek to take in the coming months.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesAdding to the impatience is that a vast majority of the exclusions to the China tariffs that were granted under the Trump administration have now expired, and the Biden administration has not created a process to allow companies to seek new exclusions.Lawmakers from both parties have written to the Biden administration urging it to restart the exclusion process, and the Senate included a provision to reinstate expired exclusions and set up a process for granting new ones as part of a legislative package to bolster competitiveness with China that passed in June. The Senate provision has been met with resistance in the House, according to a House Democratic aide, so the two chambers may wind up at odds over whether to address tariff exclusions as part of a final China package.Robert E. Lighthizer, who was Mr. Trump’s trade representative and negotiated the trade deal with China, said in an interview that lobbyists were trying to weaken the executive branch’s power to impose tariffs.“People working for China and Chinese importers want to get rid of the last tool that Biden and subsequent presidents will have to deal with Chinese unfair trade practices,” Mr. Lighthizer said.Business groups are not uniformly in favor of lifting tariffs. The National Council of Textile Organizations, which represents the American textile industry, wants the administration to keep tariffs on finished apparel and home textile products from China.“We have been pretty strong in our message to the administration saying please continue this approach on getting tough on China,” said Kimberly Glas, the textile group’s president and chief executive.Any decision on rolling back tariffs could also have domestic political implications in the United States, where a tough-on-China mentality has permeated both major parties. Any steps by the Biden administration to roll back Trump-era policies toward Beijing could be seized on by political opponents seeking to paint Mr. Biden as insufficiently tough on China at a time when the country is engaged in a rapid military buildup.Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a trade group that represents the United Steelworkers and some domestic manufacturers, noted that concern about China on both economic and national security grounds was “one of the few issues that unites Democrats and Republicans these days.”“A dismantling of the tariffs has no upside for Joe Biden,” he said. “At a time when you’re trying to build up U.S. capacity in key industries, it would invite a flood of Chinese imports to just overwhelm that.”The Biden administration has said little about its tariff plans or how it will address China’s failure to meet its commitments under the Trump trade deal. China has not fulfilled its purchase commitments, according to Chad P. Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has tracked China’s purchases of U.S. goods. But Chinese economists contend that Beijing has been sincere in wanting to meet its promises, and that the pandemic has affected demand in China.When asked about the administration’s review of China trade policy, Ms. Tai has responded by saying she was aware that “time is of the essence.” However, she has refrained from offering a preview of what steps the administration may seek to take.“In terms of how we need to approach this trade relationship,” Ms. Tai said at a virtual event last week, “we need to approach it with deliberation.”Keith Bradsher More

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    U.S.-China Trade Talks Should Resume, U.S. Business Groups Say

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    A letter from influential industry organizations asked the White House to resume negotiations on tariffs and other measures that stalled during a bruising trade war.A group of the most influential American business groups is urging the Biden administration to restart trade talks with China and cut tariffs on Chinese-made goods that had remained in place after the start of the bruising trade war between the two countries.The groups, which represented interests as diverse as potato farmers, microchip companies and the pharmaceutical industry, said in a letter dated Thursday that the Biden administration should take “swift action” to address “burdensome” tariffs. They also called on the White House to work with the Chinese government to ensure that it carries out commitments made in its trade truce with the Trump administration, sealed in early 2020.The letter, addressed to the Treasury Department and the United States trade representative, comes as the relationship between the world’s two largest economies remains fractious. A high-profile visit to China last month by Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, began with acerbic opening remarks from the Chinese side and ended with little sign of progress. The two have squabbled over human rights, cyberattacks and China’s military operations in the South China Sea.While the Biden administration has mapped out a strategy of confrontation with China on a range of issues, it has said less about the countries’ economic relationship.It is more than seven months into a review of the trade deal that former President Donald J. Trump signed with China in January 2020, along with other national security measures from the previous administration. Officials have not yet announced the results of that review.A visit to China last month by Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, ended with little sign of progress.U.S. Department of State, via ReutersThe January 2020 trade truce essentially froze into place U.S. tariffs on $360 billion in Chinese imports. That deal also did nothing to stop the Chinese government’s subsidies of strategic industries like computer chips and electric cars, which have worried American competitors. While some of the provisions of the trade deal are set to expire at the end of the year, much of the agreement will remain in place.The industry group letter appeared to be an attempt to prod the Biden administration into action.“Due to the tariffs, U.S. industries face increased costs to manufacture products and provide services domestically, making their exports of these products and services less competitive abroad,” read the letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times.The Treasury Department and the United States Trade Representative did not immediately comment. The existence of the letter was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.The letter said that China had met some of its commitments as part of the trade deal, including new measures to open up its market to U.S. financial institutions. It added that further talks would be the only way to ensure that China would carry out remaining commitments in other sectors, like intellectual property protection.Shipping containers at a port in Nantong, China. A letter from U.S. business groups is asking the Biden administration to cut tariffs on Chinese-made goods.CHINATOPIX, via Associated PressThough China has made large-scale purchases of U.S. goods since the trade war, the amount and composition have fallen short of its commitments to buy $200 billion worth of American goods and services in 2020 and 2021. According to analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, China fell short of those purchases by 40 percent last year and is off by 30 percent this year.“We strongly urge the administration to work with the Chinese government to increase purchases of U.S. goods through the remainder of 2021 and implement all structural commitments of the agreement before its two-year anniversary on Feb. 15, 2022,” the letter added.While the Biden administration has questioned whether the trade deal with China was well designed, it has also signaled that it will continue to push China on what it perceives as unfair trade practices.In June, President Biden expanded a Trump administration blacklist that blocked Americans from investing in Chinese companies that aid the country’s military or repression of religious minorities. Mr. Biden included Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications giant, on the list of banned firms. The White House also announced the formation of a trade and technology council with American and European officials, an effort to counter China’s influence by coordinating digital policies between Brussels and Washington.“We will not hesitate to call out China’s coercive and unfair trade practices that harm American workers, undermine the multilateral system or violate basic human rights,” Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative, said in prepared testimony for a Senate hearing in May. “We are working toward a strong, strategic approach to our trade and economic relationship with China.” More

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    Yellen Says China Trade Deal Has ‘Hurt American Consumers’

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    The Treasury secretary said an agreement made by the Trump administration, which remains under review, had failed to address fundamental problems between the two countries.WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen has cast doubt on the merits of the trade agreement between the United States and China, arguing that it has failed to address the most pressing disputes between the world’s two largest economies and warning that the tariffs that remain in place have harmed American consumers.Ms. Yellen’s comments, in an interview with The New York Times this week, come as the Biden administration is seven months into an extensive review of America’s economic relationship with China. The review must answer the central question of what to do about the deal that former President Donald J. Trump signed in early 2020 that included Chinese commitments to buy American products and change its trade practices.Tariffs that remain on $360 billion of Chinese imports are hanging in the balance, and the Biden administration has said little about the deal’s fate. Trump administration officials tried to create tariffs that would shelter key American industries like car making and aircraft manufacturing from what they described as subsidized Chinese exports.But Ms. Yellen questioned whether the tariffs had been well designed. “My own personal view is that tariffs were not put in place on China in a way that was very thoughtful with respect to where there are problems and what is the U.S. interest,” she said at the conclusion of a weeklong trip to Europe.President Biden has not moved to roll back the tariffs, but Ms. Yellen suggested that they were not helping the economy.“Tariffs are taxes on consumers. In some cases it seems to me what we did hurt American consumers, and the type of deal that the prior administration negotiated really didn’t address in many ways the fundamental problems we have with China,” she said.But reaching any new deal could be hard given rising tensions between the two countries on other issues. The Biden administration warned U.S. businesses in Hong Kong on Friday about the risks of doing business there, including the possibility of electronic surveillance and the surrender of customer data to the authorities.Chinese officials would welcome any unilateral American move to dismantle tariffs, according to two people involved in Chinese policymaking. But China is not willing to halt its broad industrial subsidies in exchange for a tariff deal, they said.Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, has sought technological self-reliance for his country and the creation of millions of well-paid jobs through government assistance to Chinese manufacturers of electric cars, commercial aircraft, semiconductors and other products.It might be possible to make some adjustments at the margins of these policies, but China is not willing to abandon its ambitions, said both people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.Academic experts in China share the government’s skepticism that any quick deal can be achieved.“Even if we go back to the negotiating table, it will be tough to reach an agreement,” said George Yu, a trade economist at Renmin University in Beijing.The Trump administration also sought, without success, to persuade Chinese officials to abandon heavy subsidies for high-tech industries. Robert E. Lighthizer, Mr. Trump’s trade representative, ended up imposing tariffs aimed at preventing subsidized Chinese companies from driving American companies out of business.Getting China to Buy American MadeThe United States and China named last year’s pact the Phase 1 agreement, and promised to negotiate a second phase. But that never happened.The tariffs have played a particularly large role in the auto industry.In response to Mr. Trump’s 25 percent tariff on imported gasoline-powered and electric cars from China, American automakers like Ford Motor have abandoned plans to import inexpensive cars from their Chinese factories. Chinese automakers like Guangzhou Auto have also shelved plans to enter the American market.Chinese car exports have surged this spring as new factories come into production, many of them built with extensive subsidies. But the inexpensive Chinese cars have mainly gone elsewhere in Asia and to Europe, even as car prices in the United States have climbed.Ms. Yellen did not specifically address automotive tariffs.The first phase of the trade deal included a requirement for a high-level review this summer. The agreement requires China to stop forcing foreign firms to transfer their technology to Chinese companies doing business there.Phase 1 also included a Chinese pledge to buy an additional $200 billion of American goods and services through the end of this year. The agreement was intended to make sure that China did not retaliate for American tariffs by discouraging Chinese companies from buying American goods.Although China has resumed large-scale purchases of U.S. goods since the countries’ trade war, neither the overall value of these purchases nor the composition of purchases has met the Trump administration’s hopes.China fell short of its commitments by 40 percent last year and is off by more than 30 percent so far this year, said Chad P. Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who has been tracking the purchases. The pace of agricultural purchases has picked up, but China is not buying enough cars, airplanes or other products made in the United States to meet its obligations.China also pledged in the Phase 1 agreement that its purchases of American goods would continue rising from 2022 through 2025.Biden’s Blended ApproachThe Biden administration is cognizant that all of these purchase requirements have frustrated American allies who feel that the agreement has cost them sales.One reason China is not eager to reopen potentially acrimonious negotiations over American tariffs and Chinese subsidies is that the Phase 1 agreement has transformed trade relations between the two countries, said the people familiar with Chinese economic policymaking. Trade has gone from being one of their biggest sources of friction to becoming one of the least contentious areas of their relationship.Under Mr. Biden, the United States has maintained pressure on China and in some respects stepped it up, focusing on concerns about its humanitarian record that Mr. Trump usually overlooked.In March, the Biden administration placed sanctions on top Chinese officials as part of an effort with Britain, Canada and the European Union to punish Beijing for human rights abuses against the largely Muslim Uyghur minority group.In June, the White House took steps to crack down on forced labor in the supply chain for solar panels in the Chinese region of Xinjiang, including a ban on imports from a silicon producer there. It also set aside a dispute with Europe over aircraft subsidies for Boeing and Airbus in June so that the United States could more effectively corral allies to counter China’s ambitions to dominate key industries.China has also been accelerating the pace of “decoupling” from the United States, directing its technology companies to avoid initial public offerings in the United States and list in Hong Kong instead. That has been a big blow to Wall Street firms that have reaped large advisory fees from Chinese companies listing their shares in the United States.Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, has said little so far about the Phase 1 agreement, preferring to emphasize that the administration is still developing its policy toward China.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesThe Treasury Department, with its close ties to Wall Street, has long been much more wary of antagonizing China than the Office of the United States Trade Representative, a separate cabinet agency that oversees trade policy. Katherine Tai, Mr. Biden’s trade representative, has said little so far about the Phase 1 agreement, preferring to emphasize instead that the administration is still developing its policy toward China.Ms. Yellen’s official meetings with her Chinese counterparts have so far been sparse. The Treasury Department announced last month that she had held a virtual call with Liu He, China’s vice premier. They discussed the economic recovery and areas of cooperation, and Ms. Yellen raised concerns about China’s human rights record.She expressed those concerns publicly during a speech in Brussels this week, telling European finance ministers that they should work together to counter “China’s unfair economic practices, malign behavior and human rights abuses.”The comment made waves within the Chinese government. A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian, said that “China categorically rejects” Ms. Yellen’s remarks and described them as a smear.The Biden administration has won praise for maintaining a hawkish stance toward China without the provocative approach of the Trump administration, which destabilized the global economy with tariffs and a trade war.“Joe Biden has done what he said he would do — he has collected the allies and got them aligned in a similar manner on similar issues in a way that greatly strengthens America’s position vis a vis China,” said Craig Allen, president of the US-China Business Council.Michael Pillsbury, the Hudson Institute scholar who was one of Mr. Trump’s top China advisers, said the Biden administration’s approach to China was shaping up to be tougher and “more effective” than Mr. Trump’s because Mr. Biden’s aides were united in their view that the United States cannot successfully confront China alone.The big question is what comes next.Mr. Bown, of the Peterson Institute, said the Biden administration’s review of the China trade policy was taking so long most likely because the Trump administration had made so many sweeping and sometimes conflicting actions that it was a complicated portfolio to inherit. There are also complex political calculations to be made when it comes to removing the tariffs.“It’s politically toxic to be seen to be weak on China, so you’re going to need to have your ducks in a row in terms of your economic arguments,” Mr. Bown said.Despite the recent animosity, the United States was able to help coax China into joining the global tax agreement that Ms. Yellen has been helping to broker. The Biden administration believes that China wants to be part of the multilateral system and that fully severing ties between the two countries would not be healthy for the global economy.“I think we should maintain economic integration in terms of trade and capital flows and technology where we can,” Ms. Yellen said, adding that the relationship must balance security requirements. “Clearly, national security considerations have to be very carefully evaluated and we may have to take actions where, when it comes to Chinese investment in the United States or other supply chain issues, where we really see a national security need.”Alan Rappeport reported from Washington, and Keith Bradsher from Beijing. More

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    High Lumber Prices Add Urgency to a Decades-Old Trade Fight

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    WASHINGTON — A trade dispute over Canadian lumber that began when Ronald Reagan was president has become a political problem for President Biden, with home builders and members of Congress urging the administration to try to strike a deal that could help bring down the cost of critical building materials.Lumber prices remain far above prepandemic levels, even after falling sharply in recent weeks, an increase driven in part by strong housing demand and an abundance of home improvement projects during the pandemic. The higher-than-normal prices are among a wide range of supply chain complications that have cropped up as the economy picks up steam.But unlike other commodities that have been in short supply, lumber is also the subject of a long-running trade dispute between the United States and Canada, adding a layer of diplomatic intrigue to the scramble for in-demand building materials. The two countries are locked in a thorny disagreement over softwood lumber, which is widely used to build single-family homes.In the latest chapter of the dispute, the Trump administration in 2017 imposed duties on Canadian softwood lumber imports in response to what it deemed unfair trade practices. Now, with lumber prices driving up the cost of new home construction, the Biden administration is facing pressure to seek a resolution to the long-running spat.“If you look at the structure of home building — a lot of wood there,” said Representative Brian Higgins, Democrat of New York, whose Buffalo-area district borders Canada. “So the cost of softwood lumber is going to profoundly influence the cost that is inevitably passed on to the consumer.”The National Association of Home Builders, an influential trade group, has been particularly vocal about the issue, and numerous lawmakers have taken an interest as well. Last month, a bipartisan group of nearly 100 House members, led by Mr. Higgins and Representative Kevin Hern, Republican of Oklahoma, wrote to Katherine Tai, the United States trade representative, urging her to seek a deal with Canada.But signs of diplomatic progress have been scarce, and Canadian lumber producers may soon face higher duties. The Commerce Department said last month that it tentatively planned to double the duties later this year, to 18.3 percent from 9 percent for most producers.The move was cheered by the American lumber industry, but it drew criticism from U.S. home builders along with the Canadian government and the country’s lumber industry. Chuck Fowke, a custom home builder in Florida and the chairman of the National Association of Home Builders, said the planned increase “shows the White House does not care about the plight of American home buyers and renters.”Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who met with the home builders group last month, said afterward that she would seek to “identify targeted actions the government or industry can take to address supply chain constraints.”Finding a resolution to the trade dispute is unlikely to be a simple undertaking for the Biden administration. “There’s really nothing that the administration can do quickly,” said Scott Lincicome, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, who criticized the lumber duties and the system that allows domestic industries to seek them.The United States and Canada have been at odds over lumber since the 1980s. The saga has gone on for so long that lumber disputes over the years are commonly referred to with Roman numerals, akin to the Super Bowl. The current dispute is called Lumber V; Lumber IV took place during the George W. Bush administration.The friction between the United States and Canada over softwood lumber stems in large part from the differences in how timber is harvested in the two countries. While most timberland in the United States is privately owned, most of Canada’s forestland is publicly owned, and companies pay fees set by provincial governments to harvest timber from their land.A lumberyard in Victoria, British Columbia. Canadian lumber producers may soon face higher duties. James MacDonald/BloombergA sawmill in Chemainus, British Columbia. The U.S. Commerce Department said it tentatively planned to double the duties this year to 18.3 percent for most Canadian producers.James MacDonald/BloombergAmerican lumber producers contend that the fees are artificially low and amount to an unfair government subsidy. The United States and Canada have reached a series of agreements over the years regarding lumber imports into the United States, but the most recent deal expired in 2015.“The core problem, and partly why you can never resolve this, comes down to structure,” said Eric Miller, a former Canadian official and the president of the Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, a consultancy.In 2016, toward the end of the Obama administration, the American lumber industry petitioned the government to impose duties on Canadian softwood lumber imports in response to what it contended were unfair trade practices. The proceedings continued under the Trump administration, which in 2017 imposed duties of 20.2 percent for most Canadian producers. The rate was lowered to 9 percent last year.The status of the long-running dispute took on a new urgency as the price of lumber soared over the past year. The National Association of Home Builders estimated in April that higher lumber costs had added nearly $36,000 to the price of an average newly constructed single-family home. A benchmark for the price of framing lumber set a record high of $1,515 per thousand board feet in May, four times the price at the beginning of 2020, before beginning to plummet. Last week, the price stood at $930, still more than double its level at the start of 2020, according to Fastmarkets Random Lengths, the trade publication that publishes the benchmark.“As an economist, it is very hard to understand why we’re taxing something we don’t produce enough of,” said Robert Dietz, the chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders.On the other side of the issue are U.S. lumber producers. The U.S. Lumber Coalition, an industry group, has argued that strong demand, not duties, is driving lumber prices and that the duties make up only a small portion of the total cost of lumber for new homes.The coalition credits the duties with strengthening the U.S. lumber industry, saying in a statement that American sawmills had expanded capacity in recent years, producing an additional 11 billion board feet of lumber since 2016. “More lumber being manufactured in America to meet domestic demand is a direct result of the trade enforcement, and the U.S. industry strongly urges the administration to continue this enforcement,” the coalition said.Dustin Jalbert, a senior economist at Fastmarkets, a price reporting firm, attributed the chaotic lumber market and high prices in large part to effects from the pandemic. At the start of the pandemic, he said, sawmills “assumed the worst” and curbed production, only for the housing market to rebound and for demand to soar.Mr. Jalbert said the duties stemming from the U.S.-Canada dispute were not a major reason for the high prices. “In terms of the short-term pricing situation, it’s lower down the list in terms of the factors that are driving the record prices that we’ve seen in the market,” he said.Mr. Dietz of the home builders association acknowledged in an interview last month that “you could suspend the lumber tariff and you’re still not going to cool off this market,” adding, “A lot of the driving forces are on the demand side.”The National Association of Home Builders, a trade group, estimated in April that higher lumber costs had added nearly $36,000 to the price of an average newly constructed single-family home.Wes Frazer for The New York TimesThe status of the long-running dispute took on a new urgency as the price of lumber soared over the past year.Wes Frazer for The New York TimesBut he argued that getting rid of the duties would still be a useful step. “This is not a moment where we need to be saying: ‘Well, that’s going to help, but it’s not going to solve the problem. Therefore, it’s not a solution,’” he said.Even if the lumber duties are playing only a modest role in the current market conditions, the issue has still grabbed the attention of lawmakers. Ms. Tai and Ms. Raimondo both faced questions about lumber during hearings on Capitol Hill this spring.“The home builders, the Realtors, everybody in my state is talking about the cost of lumber,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican, told Ms. Tai last month.Ms. Tai seemed to fault Canada for the stalemate. “In order to have an agreement and in order to have a negotiation, you need to have a partner,” she told Mr. Thune. “And thus far, the Canadians have not expressed interest in engaging.”Adam Hodge, a spokesman for Ms. Tai, said the United States was “open to resolving our differences” with Canada over softwood lumber. But, he added, “That would require addressing Canadian policies that create an uneven playing field for the U.S. industry, and to date, Canada has been unwilling to adequately address these concerns.”A spokeswoman for Mary Ng, the Canadian international trade minister, offered a different take on the Canadians’ interest in engaging on the issue.“Minister Ng has raised the United States’ unfair and unwarranted duties on softwood lumber at every opportunity, including directly with the president, with Secretary Raimondo and with Ambassador Tai, and we welcome discussions,” the spokeswoman, Alice Hansen, said. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also raised the matter with Mr. Biden on the sidelines of the Group of 7 summit in Britain this month, Ms. Hansen said.At a recent parliamentary hearing, Ms. Ng described the duties as “a tax on the American people” that makes housing more expensive for them.“We do believe that a negotiated settlement would be in the best interest of both countries,” she said. “But in the meantime, we must defend against these unwarranted tariffs, which we will continue to do.” More