China’s Cheap Green Imports Hurt US Economy, White House Reportedly Laments

In 2023, China accounted for around 60% of global electric car sales, according to the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental group.

United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reportedly plans to warn China against flooding the global market with cheap green energy exports, because it “hurts American firms and workers, as well as firms and workers around the world.”

Yellen planned to deliver her message to Beijing from a solar energy manufacturer in the US state of Georgia on Wednesday. The plant, Suniva, closed in 2017 due to cheap imports flooding the market, the Treasury claims. However, its reopening is being incentivized by the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides incentives for green energy manufacturers. She will then travel to China for her second trip under her role as treasury secretary.

“It is important to the president and me that American firms and workers can compete on a level playing field. We have raised overcapacity in previous discussions with China and I plan to make it a key issue in discussions during my next trip there,” Yellen will say, according to reports.

Using China’s previous excess production of metals including steel and aluminum as an example, which she says damaged the economy, products like electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries could also distort markets, Yellen claims.

“China’s overcapacity distorts global prices and production patterns and hurts American firms and workers,” she will say.

The Biden administration is trying to drive investment into its own domestic cleantech sector, and is offering large tax breaks and subsidies to developers to build green energy manufacturing facilities in the US in order to break from their dependence on Chinese supply chains.

US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have worked to stabilize their economic relationship, but differences over trade policy, investment restrictions, and cyberespionage paranoia have strained those ties.

On Tuesday, China filed a World Trade Organization complaint against the US in response to what it says are discriminatory requirements for electric vehicle subsidies. And on Wednesday, Xi Jinping met with American business leaders and academics in Beijing, telling them that China is “building a first-class business environment that is market oriented.”

The Chinese leader also said that in areas like trade, artificial intelligence and climate change, China and the US should help each other's development and not obstruct one another.

Allies of the US have also criticized the Reduction Act as “protectionist”. And clean energy groups have also warned that restricting the flow of clean energy imports into the US will worsen goals to reduce emissions and will also make renewable technology more expensive and therefore less accessible.