Tariff cut on certain imports may ease US inflation: Chinese experts

They made the remarks after US treasury secretary Janet Yellen suggested that her country is open to scaling back the Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods to help deal with the high inflation disrupting the US economy this year.

Daleep Singh, US deputy national security adviser for international economics, also said earlier that the US government could lower tariffs imposed on a host of non-strategic Chinese goods like bicycles or apparel to help combat inflation.

The additional tariffs slapped by the United States on Chinese imports will eventually add to the burden felt by US consumers and are harmful to the US economy, Zhang Yansheng, chief researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said.

But some politicians in the US want to use tariffs as a bargaining chip to coerce China to strategically contain the rise of its economy, he added.

The high level of inflation in the United States is a combined result of excessively loose monetary policies and strained international industrial and supply chains due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Liu Ying, a senior researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of Renmin University of China in Beijing. He was quoted as saying by an official Chinese newspaper.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict and Western sanctions further stoked US product prices, she said.

"Raising interest rates, as the US has been doing, cannot quell the inflation as long as the pandemic is not fully controlled, and if the US really cares about its people's interests, it should remove additional tariffs on Chinese imports to reduce price burdens on its people," she added.

The office of the US trade representative reinstated 352 expired Chinese product exclusions from US Section 301 tariffs last month.

China's exports to the United States surged by 16.7 per cent year on year to $138.89 billion in the first quarter of 2022, up from the 13.8 per cent growth registered in the first two months, data from China's general administration of customs showed.

ALCHEMPro News Desk (DS)