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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen: Tariffs make no strategic sense

Photo: MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA

US President Joe Biden is facing a problem that many heads of government are currently facing: inflation threatens to get out of hand.

Central banks around the world are trying to counteract this by raising interest rates, and governments are also looking for ways to relieve consumers.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has now confirmed that some tariffs introduced under Donald Trump for goods or services from China are also up for discussion in the fight against inflation.

"We all understand that China engages in a variety of unfair trade practices," Yellen told ABC News.

“It's important to respond.

But of the tariffs we inherited, some make no strategic sense and increase costs for consumers.”

Biden is therefore reviewing tariff policy towards China as a way of reducing inflation.

The minister did not say which taxes could be specifically affected.

Biden has already discussed considerations of lifting some of the billions of dollars in tariffs his predecessor Trump imposed on Chinese goods in 2018 and 2019 amid a bitter trade war between the world's two largest economies.

The Biden government and economic experts are concerned that the United States, the world's largest economy, could slip into recession.

Finance Minister Yellen does not consider such a scenario to be inevitable.

She pointed to the positive factors: "The labor market is very strong, probably the strongest in the post-war period," she said.

However, Yellen added that she expected the economy to slow down and acknowledged that inflation was "unacceptably high".

It takes "skill and luck" to lower inflation while keeping unemployment low.

"I think it's possible," she said.

The US Federal Reserve recently raised interest rates by 0.75 percentage points, the highest rate since 1994. In May, US consumer prices rose dramatically again at a rate of 8.6 percent.

As in Germany, US consumers currently have to spend significantly more money on refueling.

Yellen therefore did not rule out a nationwide suspension of the gasoline tax.

mmq/Reuters/AP