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Intellectual property social justice occupies a unique space in the IP social reform discourse. Whereas the predominating reformist rhetoric confronts the challenge as one of importing pertinent social values into the IP regime, intellectual property social justice eschews any implicit conceptualization of intellectual property protection as inherently devoid of non-economic/socially benign objectives. Whether as an implement of positive social law or an acknowledgement of natural rights and the “social contract”, 3 the ultimate function of intellectual property protection is to cultivate human development and advancement: the intellectual property regime is structured to encourage, access and apply human creativity and innovation because it is socially useful to do so. While economic incentives and commoditization mechanisms are certainly elements of intellectual property protection, they are not its only features or concerns. Intellectual property social justice regards the values of equitable access, inclusion and empowerment as essential and indeed intrinsic to the enterprise. From this perspective, intellectual property social justice confronts “IP law and economics”4 extremes as promoting and perpetuating socially wasteful inefficiencies in the contemporary intellectual property protection apparatus. Through IP Empowerment, intellectual property social justice realigns the mechanism so as to recoup the resulting social losses and maximize the overall efficiency and productive impact/output of the intellectual property system.5

Neoliberal antagonism toward capacity-building The comments of these organizers offer a glimpse at how organizing and building collective power in the context of neoliberalism is difficult, especially given neoliberalism’s historical antagonism toward social movements. Hong (2015) described how neoliberalism took hold in the wake of the 1960s liberation movements as a “brutal crackdown by the forces of the state as well as the incorporation and affirmation of those aspects of these movements that were appropriable” (p. 11). Anti-colonial, racial justice, and anti-capitalist movements pose a direct threat to neoliberalism’s precarity-inducing logic of individualism and privatization. Butler (2015) described precarity as “that politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support more than others, and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death” (p. 33). The precarity wrought by neoliberal capitalism – like low wages, long working days, unaffordable housing, and expensive, privatized healthcare – coerces organizers into replicating its logics by working individually to meet the urgency of the moment rather than slowing down to invest in collective capacity-building or relational networks of support. Put another way, neoliberalism is crafty. It justifies the dismantling of community and public support while making us believe we are primarily responsible for our struggles, inviting a sort of desperate personal effort to persevere. Anna didn’t make the candidate development handbook she had planned before she left her candidate development role and Harriett hasn’t written her book; these infrastructure-building projects were sidelined in favor of producing the quick, visible results that neoliberal capitalism demands. Ultimately, the paucity of mentorship support that some of the organizers expressed and the challenges of mentoring and capacity-building that others discussed reflect a paradoxical relation: On the one hand, newer organizers want mentors to help set the pace, bring in resources and wisdom, and provide guidance. On the other hand, taking the time to recruit and educate volunteer laborers or to archive prior efforts – particularly in a precarity-inducing economy where overwork and underpay is the norm – creates additional labor for experienced organizers that doesn’t necessarily have an immediate payoff. In this way, neoliberal conditions and the related search for more immediate returns produce scenarios in organizing spaces where organizers are positioned as deputies for neoliberal logic. Specifically, they are made into “responsibilized individuals […] required to provide for themselves in the context of powers and contingencies radically limiting their ability to do so” (Brown, 2015, p. 134; emphasis added). In the excerpts shared above, organizers were driven to labor individually because the work of building capacity was just too difficult in a context where there’s just so much that needs to be done and finding volunteer labor or providing mentor support would supplant another, seemingly more pressing need

There is little question that shoring up of IP rights and trade liberalization affects human and cultural rights, economic inequality, labor conditions, environmental protection, and a host of other critical issues. The issues range from providing life-saving drugs to the poorest people in the world to addressing environmental degradation, protecting the global environment, combating unsafe working conditions, and eradicating abusive child labor practices. As with the interplay of IP and inequality more generally, the policy matrix is replete with paradoxes and inherent conflicts. Innovation and expressive creativity promise to help developing nations to address the often dire plight of their citizens. Yet this vision conflicts with various non-utilitarian perspectives as well as the distorting influences of corporate interests and geopolitics.

CONCLUSION

The capability-enhancing function of IP law refers to its potential to advance human-capabilities as envisioned in the capability approach to justice developed by Sen and Nussbaum. The capability approach advocates that, a just State must secure central human capabilities to a threshold level with the aim of facilitating ‘human flourishing’ and has been employed by scholars such as Chon 35 and Sunder36 as a conceptual framework in developing democratic theories of IP law (particularly focusing on copyright). These democratic theories elaborate the link between IP law and the promotion of human capabilities, highlight the limitations of the narrow-utilitarian-based conceptualization of IP law and advocate for a broader distributional-justice based approach that is aimed at facilitating human-development.

The concept of capabilities is vaguely defined but is described in relation to ‘functionings’. Functionings are “the various things a person may value doing or being”37 and capability refers to various combinations of functionings that are feasible for an individual to achieve. 38 Thus, capability can be understood as the substantive freedom 39 or autonomy of a group or entity to achieve functioning combinations based on their individual and collective values and preferences. Nussbaum presents an open-ended list of capabilities40 which includes: (a) the ability to use the senses; to imagine, think, and reason and to use one’s mind in ways protected by guarantees of freedom of expression (b) ability to participate effectively in political choices that govern one’s life (i.e. the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association), (c) the ability to laugh, play and enjoy recreational activities, (d) the ability to have good health. Thus, these capabilities correspond to fundamental rights and freedoms41 as guaranteed by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR)42 and securing them will advance democratic inclusion in society by promoting equality and self-determination and diversity.

IP theft can enhance “regular” technological development. Huawei, for example, invests huge amounts in research and development. But the US Attorney’s case filing also describes an internal company competition with prizes for employees who could steal the best IP. There is little incentive for China and Chinese companies to stop, as the US and other countries have never applied any real punishment. This partly explains how China has surged from a standing start in 1980 to become the world’s second-largest economy. And it is costing America. A 2018 US Trade Representative report estimated that Chinese IP theft costs the American economy between US$225 billion and $600 billion annually. As that figure shows, experts differ on how to calculate losses from IP thievery. But even at the low end, this is massive money. China is able to rapidly commercialize technologies in its huge domestic market. These can then be exported overseas, invariably undercutting competitors’ prices, thanks to cheap financing and government subsidies and assistance. IP theft is not only a commercial issue. It is contributing to China’s military build up. China has been particularly successful in obtaining stealth, naval and aviation technologies. A recent internal US Navy review lamented that the service and its contractors were “under cyber siege” – with PRC hackers, including government hackers, as prime culprits.

The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, passed by the Senate in the week-ending June 11, 2021, includes two cyber-related acts – both introduced by Senator Portman, Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The Cyber Response and Recovery Act is designed to improve the federal response to major cyberattacks, such as the recent attack against the Colonial Pipeline. It establishes a Cyber Response and Recovery Fund for the DHS and CISA to provide support for public or private organizations recovering from major attacks. It can only be activated by a declaration of a significant incident by the Secretary of Homeland Security, and has a perhaps limited budget of $20 million over seven years. Its purpose, however, is similar to the declared purpose of the EU’s Joint Cyber Unit. The Safeguarding American Innovation Act is designed to prevent foreign powers – and especially China – from stealing or unlawfully acquiring U.S. federally funded research. It is the direct result of a major study published in December 2019 titled Threats to the U.S. Research Enterprise: China’s Talent Recruitment Plans (PDF). The study declares, “The open nature of research in America is manifest; we encourage our researchers and scientists to ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’. In turn, America attracts the best and brightest. Foreign researchers and scholars travel to the United States just to participate in the advancement of science and technology.” But it then warns that this openness is abused by foreign powers to advance their own national interests. The most aggressive of these is China with its talent recruitment programs. It has over 200 such plans, with the most prominent being the Thousand Talents Plan. This, says the report, “incentivizes individuals engaged in research and development in the United States to transmit the knowledge and research they gain here to China in exchange for salaries, research funding, lab space, and other incentives.” The report goes on to note, “Talent recruitment plan members removed 30,000 electronic files before leaving for China, submitted false information when applying for grant funds, filed a patent based on U.S. government-funded research, and hired other Chinese talent recruitment plan members to work on U.S. national security topics.” Theft of U.S. intellectual property (IP) is a fundamental part of China’s stated intention to be the world leader in science and technology by 2050. There are three primary prongs to Chinese acquisition of western – especially U.S. – intellectual property: straightforward hacking and cyber theft; the implant of physical insiders to research establishments and R&D labs; and hiring western experts to work in China. Jon Ford, MD of global government services & insider threat risk solutions at Mandiant told SecurityWeek that we should not pin it all on China – everybody does this to everybody else. Nevertheless, Chinese theft of U.S. IP is the most predominant and aggressive. In January 2020, Dr. Charles Lieber, chair of the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University, was arrested and charged. He was accused of being a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan from in or about 2012 to 2017. “Under the terms of Lieber’s three-year Thousand Talents contract,” said the DOJ, “Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) paid Lieber $50,000 USD per month, living expenses of up to 1,000,000 Chinese Yuan (approximately $158,000 USD at the time) and awarded him more than $1.5 million to establish a research lab at WUT. In return, Lieber was obligated to work for WUT ‘not less than nine months a year’ by ‘declaring international cooperation projects, cultivating young teachers and Ph.D. students, organizing international conference[s], applying for patents and publishing articles in the name of’ WUT.” Mandiant’s Ford explains that any researcher working in China will get caught up in the Chinese intelligence laws. “Article 7 of the PRC’s national intelligence law, enacted in 2017, says all organizations and citizens shall – shall – support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with the law, and shall protect national work secrets they’re aware of,” he told SecurityWeek. “An important part of PRC national intelligence operations is the collection of data.” So, once a researcher has been lured to China with the promise of money, resources, and greater recognition, he or she is compelled by law to hand over all research to the Chinese government – even that resourced from the U.S. – while being prohibited from handing over any Chinese data to America. Attracting top researchers to move to China is only part of the plan – it works in the other direction by embedding Chinese ‘researchers’ into U.S. universities and companies. These people are usually native Chinese citizens who intend to return to China and are consequently still bound by the Chinese laws. Song Guo Zheng was born in Guichi, China. He became a rheumatology professor and researcher in Ohio. He was arrested on May 22, 2020 at Anchorage, Alaska, alighting from one charter flight before boarding another to China. He was charged with misappropriating $4.1 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop China’s expertise in the areas of rheumatology and immunology. On his arrest, he was found to be carrying three large bags, one small suitcase and a briefcase containing two laptops, three cellular telephones, several USB drives, several silver bars, expired Chinese passports for his family, deeds for property in China and other items. In January 2020, Yanqing Ye was charged, but not arrested since she was in China at the time. She had been studying at Boston University’s (BU) Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering from October 2017 to April 2019. But she is also a Lieutenant of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China and a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). She hid her ongoing military service at China’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT). It is alleged that Ye continued to work as a PLA Lieutenant completing numerous assignments from PLA officers such as conducting research, assessing U.S. military websites, and sending U.S. documents and information to China. Ye compiled information for the PLA on two U.S. scientists with expertise in robotics and computer science. The Ye method is used against both academia and private enterprises – students are embedded in universities and employees are embedded in, or recruited from within, private enterprises working on cutting edge technologies. Technologically sensitive data is stolen and either uploaded to servers in China or physically transported there. In December 2016, Yu Long (a Chinese citizen lawfully resident in the U.S.), was charged with the theft of numerous sensitive military program documents from United Technologies (now part of Raytheon Technologies) and transporting them to China. Long had earlier worked as a senior engineer/scientist at United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) in Connecticut. In August 2014, he emailed a university in China, attaching an updated ‘achievement and future plan’. In the plan, Long discussed his work related to the F119 and F135 U.S. military fighter jet engines and stated that he also had knowledge of unpublished UTRC projects in which the U.S. Air Force had shown interest. Legitimate access is what is sought by Chinese implants. “Whether you’re an insider or an external actor, you want that legitimate access because it's much harder to detect someone in your environment who is doing legitimate things yet stealing your data,” said Ford. “They're accessing documents they can legitimately access. Trying to determine, ‘is that theft, or is that normal course of business; what are they doing?’ is a hard call.” The examples we’ve looked at are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Chinese insider IP theft. The two Portman-inspired cyber-related parts of the new Innovation and Competition Act will likely have little overall effect on the problem. The Cyber Response and Recovery Act is designed to help organizations recover from a major breach – but by that time, the IP has already left the building. The Safeguarding American Innovation Act is designed to prevent the misuse of U.S. tax-funded grants in ways that can facilitate the transfer of U.S. research to China at the tax-payers’ expense. It seeks to close a particular door; but doesn’t prevent implanted Chinese ‘spies’ from quietly transferring data they can legitimately access to China-based cloud servers. Spies will spy; and if one door closes, they will find another. There is only so much that federal laws can do to deter malicious activities – they cannot prevent it. It is up to the individual organizations, whether in academia or the private sector, to protect their own IP through increased visibility into and vigilance over their data. But they also need to understand that nation-state spying – from any nation-state – is a level up in sophistication over standard hacking group activity.

In this highly complex Global South, Xi’s attitude toward the West may be problematic for, and possibly even damaging to, his quest for leadership of the developing world. Xi sees the future global order as a struggle between the West and the rest, a struggle he wants to lead and control. But even though many leaders in the Global South are frustrated with Washington, its policies, and its attitude, they won’t see it in their interests to choose sides in the competition between the United States and China and burn their bridges to the West. The advanced democracies simply remain too important to many members of the Global South for them to take an oppositional stance. That reality may increase the appeal of other, less confrontational, approaches to global governance reform than what Xi is proposing. For instance, Modi, through his approach at the recent G20 summit, is offering a more inclusive vision, in which the voice of the Global South is heard and enhanced within the context of cooperation with the West and its institutions. That could well be a more appealing, and more pragmatic, strategy for other leaders in the developing world.

China’s political elite seem to recognize the vulnerability of their position in the Global South. Shortly after the G20 in September 2023, the state-run China Daily insisted that Washington’s efforts to marginalize China “will hardly pull the wool over the eyes of most developing countries about the irreplaceable role China has been playing in defending the interests and rights of developing countries.”57 A Day earlier, the Global Times, run by the Chinese Communist Party, called the notion of a Global South without China a “pseudo-proposition.” It went on to argue that “some people in the West attempt to exclude China from the ‘Global South,’ but they cannot deny our close ties and cooperation with developing countries, nor can they deny the contributions China has made to the development of ‘the South’ countries and South-South cooperation.”58 Such editorials offer a window into the discomfort some within the Chinese government feel about China’s position in the developing world.

https://www.wita.org/atp-research/global-south-us-china-trade-war/

The conflict between the US and China prompted the two countries to reduce their dependence on each other. US manufacturing imports from China have decreased, while Asian countries categorized as low-cost countries, have increased. At the same time, the issue of reshoring US companies’ operations in China arose. A survey conducted by A.T. Kearney (2022) found that about 47% of executives of US manufacturing companies operating in China have moved part of their operations back to the US in the past three years. 29% said they would restore parts of their operations in the next three years, and 16%said they had considered reshoring but are yet to make a decision. In the survey, US company executives also outlined that their options also include Mexico, Canada, and Central American countries (nearshoring), not limited to reshoring to the US. This decision coincides with the trend of automation by US companies; instead of looking for cheap labor, they are replacing them with robots. The process creates challenges for countries that host part of US companies’ operations characterized by the labor-intensive and technology-laden process.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/when-trade-leads-war-china-russia

Almost as startling as the threats themselves are what they seem to suggest about the limits of economic interdependence as a force for peace. Both China and Russia rely to an extraordinary degree on trade for economic growth and to secure their positions on the world stage. China has managed to quintuple its GDP over the last two decades in large measure through the export of manufactured products; more than 50 percent of Russia’s government revenue comes from the export of oil and gas. According to an influential strand of thinking in international relations theory, these crucial economic ties should put a much higher price on military conflict for both countries. Yet at least from appearances, neither power seems restrained by the potential loss of such trade.

Despite a resurgence in global tensions in recent years, we live in an era of unprecedented peace between nations. Seventy years have gone by without a repeat of the major conflicts of the early twentieth century; and, since the end of the Cold War, the number of inter-state conflicts has steadily declined to practically zero. The expansion of international trade since World War II, in particular, is credited with ensuring a more secure global order by raising the economic costs of war (Polachek, 1980; Martin et al., 2008; Glick and Taylor, 2010). Nonetheless, global expenditure on defense in 2018 was roughly $1.8 trillion, a 76% increase in real terms from the post-Cold War lows of the late-1990s. Aside from the West’s recent interventions in the Middle East, a major driver of this trend is the rapid expansion of defense spending by emerging economies that have become more integrated into the world trading system in the past few decades.1 Though the growth of these economies due to trade has been welcome on the whole, the accompanying trend in their defense spending underscores the basic point that wealth created by trade is wealth that can be used to invest in one’s military capacity.

Economists have recently begun to expand the scope of international trade theory to explore the importance of arming and conflict (see, e.g., Skaperdas and Syropoulos (2001); Garfinkel et al. (2020) discussed below). These theories, however, are silent on why we continue to observe increases in arming in a seemingly peaceful and continually globalizing world. Furthermore, while “realist” security scholars have long expressed the view that the standard “gains from trade” could be outweighed by the negative consequences for a country’s future security if these gains are asymmetrically distributed, trade theory has not examined this argument specifically.2 This oversight diminishes our understanding of why and when nations expand trade with one another. Even in the present day, policymakers openly regard trade policy as an instrument for achieving security-related goals.3

The impression that trade has had a pacifying effect throughout history is an almost universal assumption in arguments regarding global affairs. Economic interdependence influences a manner in which a country behaves by giving it a false sense of security. The aforementioned argument is currently being misapplied to the United States’ foreign relations, with many over-stating the weight of trade relations with nations such as China and Russia. The idea that all types of trade are the same, and equally support peace, is a gross oversimplification. Countries should not feel secure simply because they have trade relations with possible enemies.

The theory that countries’ interconnected economies promote peace is not new and has been at the heart of the liberal school of international relations for years. The most well known theorist to posit this claim was Norman Angell in his 1909 work, The Great Illusion. In short, The Great Illusion argued that because of economic interdependence, war had become too costly. Modern history has disproved Angell’s thesis numerous times. Positive trade relations are usually the result of a myriad of circumstances. When taken as a whole, these positive relations can include: political, economic, environmental and even cultural attributes. It seems that a major reason for Angell’s enduring idea is the confusion of cause and effect. The trade between two countries is most likely the result of peaceful relations, caused by varied circumstances, as opposed to the trade promoting peaceful relations.[1]

In both U.S.-China intellectual property and textile trade negotiations, American negotiators failed to make good on threats to impose sanctions on Chinese products primarily because of opposition from the U.S. importing and retailing community. Some analysts may contend that, unlike in the MN debate, U.S. business interests enjoy a much higher level of unity in both of these cases. But while opposition interests in these cases were far less vocal and prominent than in the MFN case, they nevertheless influenced the policy orientation and position of the executive in a way that made an open trade confrontation less likely. Despite efforts by U.S. IPR-related industries and textile manufacturers to penalize China for its trade infringements, active opposition from a large constituency dependent on low-cost, labor-intensive products made it far more difficult for these industries to achieve their negotiation objectives in China. U.S. importers and retailers of such products as footwear, toys, apparel, and consumer electronics made the familiar argument that they would suffer severely if restrictions were placed on these Chinese imports, in effect constraining the IPR industries and textile manufacturers from escalating the conflict to a trade war. Table 6.1 presents a profile of the major U.S. interest groups involved in the U.S. China negotiations over IPR and textiles.

The mutual imposition of sanctions in the textile case in the early 1980s constitutes an exception to the general pattern described here. But it can be explained in terms of the relatively low level of Chinese textile and apparel exports to the United States and hence the absence of organized political opposition on the part of textile importers and retailers during that period. As the volume of Chinese textile exports to the United States rose rapidly in the 1990s, textile importers and retailers became a more active political force in opposing the threats against China. In a context of generally protectionist U.S. textile policy, such opposition at least prevented U.S. negotiators from pursuing overly aggressive trade policies, lessening the chances of trade war between the United States and China. Due to these domestic divisions generated by trade complementarity, U.S.-China trade disputes have preserved a degree of cooperativeness.

You can’t trade with someone you’re at war with. So, the more two countries trade, the more costly a war between them will be, and the less likely they should be to fight. This argument is appealing for a few reasons. First, it makes intuitive sense. Second, it looks like it fits the data well, at least for the post-war period. Since WWII, international trade has grown dramatically while the rate of international conflict has fallen.

This theory also benefits from some seemingly-strong empirical support. Two prominent proponents, Bruce Russett and John Oneal, have produced a number of books and papers that show increased economic interdependence, usually measured as the value of bilateral trade between two countries divided by a country’s GDP, reduces the chance of war between two countries. More specifically, in a 2003 paper they report that “increasing economic interdependence from the 10th to the 90th percentile reduces the risk of a fatal dispute by 32 percent.”[17] At that time, the volume of US-China trade was just below the 90th percentile for their data, and the authors conclude that the growth of US-China trade reduced the chance of conflict by 27%.[18]

China has long been seen as the “world’s factory,” churning out low-quality manufactured goods and imitating products and business models from abroad. Whether it is due to heavy-handed government interference or some cultural argument about Confucian educational values, China — or so the story goes — is a land of copycats incapable of innovation with no respect for intellectual property rights (IPR).

This, of course, is not accurate.

We decry the lack of investment in pharmaceutical sciences in Canada, while having one of the worst environments, if not the worst environment, for pharma and life-sciences patents in the OECD. Our peculiar and heavy-handed “utility” requirement for patents has resulted in the invalidation of approximately 30 patents for drugs, patents which were valid in other jurisdictions. We have no patent-restoration term, to extend the life of a patent for delays in marketing approval for a drug. We have eight-years’ data exclusivity (during which a generic competitor cannot use an innovator’s proprietary data to seek market approval), instead of the standard 10. Unfortunately, while we talk a good game about innovation, we are half-hearted about it, particularly if we see rising health costs on the horizon.

It should be no surprise that most of Canada’s technology businesses are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Technology businesses the sizes of BlackBerry and Nortel are few and far between in this country. And research clearly shows that SMEs rely more on IP rights than larger companies do, for a variety of reasons. They don’t have access to goodwill and economies of scope and scale like larger companies do. They rely on the assertion of rights to withstand often unprincipled competition from larger firms. Clear IP rights help SMEs thrive by facilitating contractual dealings — and, when necessary, infringement actions.

The VAR model in its entirety shows that, when America as the largest developed country throughout the world strengthens its intellectual property trade barrier, China—the world’s largest developing country representing the interests of another group—should enhance its intellectual property protection, persistently make progress in its intellectual property undertakings, and improve its comprehensive intellectual property strength to catch up with America in the area of intellectual property power. The model also shows that the China–U.S. trade balance may suffer relevant impacts and again achieve balance through long-term adjustments. In such an imbalance, immeasurable economic losses together with a series of unnecessary troubles and conflicts may be incurred on both China and America. One country is in a critical period of reform and opening and the other is in a leading global position.

It is important to recognize that IP-related engagement has been ongoing with China throughout the trade war. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has had cooperative relationships with China’s IP agencies for many years. It also meets with China and the three other largest patent, trademark, and design protection offices in the world on an annual basis.

What the USTR sometimes lacks in depth on IP issues, it compensates for with a comprehensive perspective on U.S.-China trade relations and the possibility of bringing WTO disputes or even unilateral retaliation. The system works best when all government agencies are interacting and working from the same page and utilizing all available tools—diplomacy, trade disputes, technical engagement, research, and even training.

However, another aspect of China’s growth is missed. The CCP is committed to leading and innovating in several high-tech sectors, which will continue to drive increased intellectual property (IP) protection for Chinese and foreign companies. The data support a shift toward greater protection of intellectual property and patents within the country. Chinese companies are becoming more protective of their IP, and there were three times as many IP-related lawsuits filed in 2020 as in 2016.5 Hence, it is worth exploring the transformation of intellectual property rights (IPR) in China, particularly given the increased competition and restrictions on American high-tech products. This is driving China to find international and internal replacements to mitigate risks to Chinese interests.

Following an in-depth review by the United States Trade Representative, President Biden is taking action to protect American workers and American companies from China’s unfair trade practices. To encourage China to eliminate its unfair trade practices regarding technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation, the President is directing increases in tariffs across strategic sectors such as steel and aluminum, semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries, critical minerals, solar cells, ship-to-shore cranes, and medical products. Steel and Aluminum The tariff rate on certain steel and aluminum products under Section 301 will increase from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024. Steel is a vital sector for the American economy, and American companies are leading the future of clean steel. Recently, the Biden-Harris Administration announced $6 billion for 33 clean manufacturing projects including for steel and aluminum, including the first new primary aluminum smelter in four decades, made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. These investments will make the United States one of the first nations in the world to convert clean hydrogen into clean steel, bolstering the U.S. steel industry’s competitiveness as the world’s cleanest major steel producer. American workers continue to face unfair competition from China’s non-market overcapacity in steel and aluminum, which are among the world’s most carbon intensive. China’s policies and subsidies for their domestic steel and aluminum industries mean high-quality, low-emissions U.S. products are undercut by artificially low-priced Chinese alternatives produced with higher emissions. Today’s actions will shield the U.S. steel and aluminum industries from China’s unfair trade practices. Semiconductors The tariff rate on semiconductors will increase from 25% to 50% by 2025. China’s policies in the legacy semiconductor sector have led to growing market share and rapid capacity expansion that risks driving out investment by market-driven firms. Over the next three to five years, China is expected to account for almost half of all new capacity coming online to manufacture certain legacy semiconductor wafers. During the pandemic, disruptions to the supply chain, including legacy chips, led to price spikes in a wide variety of products, including automobiles, consumer appliances, and medical devices, underscoring the risks of overreliance on a few markets. Through the CHIPS and Science Act, President Biden is making a nearly $53 billion investment in American semiconductor manufacturing capacity, research, innovation, and workforce. This will help counteract decades of disinvestment and offshoring that has reduced the United States’ capacity to manufacture semiconductors domestically. The CHIPS and Science Act includes $39 billion in direct incentives to build, modernize, and expand semiconductor manufacturing fabrication facilities as well as a 25% investment tax credit for semiconductor companies. Raising the tariff rate on semiconductors is an important initial step to promote the sustainability of these investments. Electric Vehicles (EVs) The tariff rate on electric vehicles under Section 301 will increase from 25% to 100% in 2024. With extensive subsidies and non-market practices leading to substantial risks of overcapacity, China’s exports of EVs grew by 70% from 2022 to 2023—jeopardizing productive investments elsewhere. A 100% tariff rate on EVs will protect American manufacturers from China’s unfair trade practices. This action advances President Biden’s vision of ensuring the future of the auto industry will be made in America by American workers. As part of the President’s Investing in America agenda, the Administration is incentivizing the development of a robust EV market through business tax credits for manufacturing of batteries and production of critical minerals, consumer tax credits for EV adoption, smart standards, federal investments in EV charging infrastructure, and grants to supply EV and battery manufacturing. The increase in the tariff rate on electric vehicles will protect these investments and jobs from unfairly priced Chinese imports. Batteries, Battery Components and Parts, and Critical Minerals The tariff rate on lithium-ion EV batteries will increase from 7.5%% to 25% in 2024, while the tariff rate on lithium-ion non-EV batteries will increase from 7.5% to 25% in 2026. The tariff rate on battery parts will increase from 7.5% to 25% in 2024. The tariff rate on natural graphite and permanent magnets will increase from zero to 25% in 2026. The tariff rate for certain other critical minerals will increase from zero to 25% in 2024. Despite rapid and recent progress in U.S. onshoring, China currently controls over 80 percent of certain segments of the EV battery supply chain, particularly upstream nodes such as critical minerals mining, processing, and refining. Concentration of critical minerals mining and refining capacity in China leaves our supply chains vulnerable and our national security and clean energy goals at risk. In order to improve U.S. and global resiliency in these supply chains, President Biden has invested across the U.S. battery supply chain to build a sufficient domestic industrial base. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Defense Production Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-Harris Administration has invested nearly $20 billion in grants and loans to expand domestic production capacity of advanced batteries and battery materials. The Inflation Reduction Act also contains manufacturing tax credits to incentivize investment in battery and battery material production in the United States. The President has also established the American Battery Materials Initiative, which will mobilize an all-of-government approach to secure a dependable, robust supply chain for batteries and their inputs. Solar Cells The tariff rate on solar cells (whether or not assembled into modules) will increase from 25% to 50% in 2024. The tariff increase will protect against China’s policy-driven overcapacity that depresses prices and inhibits the development of solar capacity outside of China. China has used unfair practices to dominate upwards of 80 to 90% of certain parts of the global solar supply chain, and is trying to maintain that status quo. Chinese policies and nonmarket practices are flooding global markets with artificially cheap solar modules and panels, undermining investment in solar manufacturing outside of China. The Biden-Harris Administration has made historic investments in the U.S. solar supply chain, building on early U.S. government-enabled research and development that helped create solar cell technologies. The Inflation Reduction Act provides supply-side tax incentives for solar components, including polysilicon, wafers, cells, modules, and backsheet material, as well as tax credits and grant and loan programs supporting deployment of utility-scale and residential solar energy projects. As a result of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, solar manufacturers have already announced nearly $17 billion in planned investment under his Administration—an 8-fold increase in U.S. manufacturing capacity, enough to supply panels for millions of homes each year by 2030. Ship-to-Shore Cranes The tariff rate on ship-to-shore cranes will increase from 0% to 25% in 2024. The Administration continues to deliver for the American people by rebuilding the United States’ industrial capacity to produce port cranes with trusted partners. A 25% tariff rate on ship-to-shore cranes will help protect U.S. manufacturers from China’s unfair trade practices that have led to excessive concentration in the market. Port cranes are essential pieces of infrastructure that enable the continuous movement and flow of critical goods to, from, and within the United States, and the Administration is taking action to mitigate risks that could disrupt American supply chains. This action also builds off of ongoing work to invest in U.S. port infrastructure through the President’s Investing in America Agenda. This port security initiative includes bringing port crane manufacturing capabilities back to the United States to support U.S. supply chain security and encourages ports across the country and around the world to use trusted vendors when sourcing cranes or other heavy equipment. Medical Products The tariff rates on syringes and needles will increase from 0% to 50% in 2024. For certain personal protective equipment (PPE), including certain respirators and face masks, the tariff rates will increase from 0–7.5% to 25% in 2024. Tariffs on rubber medical and surgical gloves will increase from 7.5% to 25% in 2026. These tariff rate increases will help support and sustain a strong domestic industrial base for medical supplies that were essential to the COVID-19 pandemic response, and continue to be used daily in every hospital across the country to deliver essential care. The federal government and the private sector have made substantial investments to build domestic manufacturing for these and other medical products to ensure American health care workers and patients have access to critical medical products when they need them. American businesses are now struggling to compete with underpriced Chinese-made supplies dumped on the market, sometimes of such poor quality that they may raise safety concerns for health care workers and patients.

As disruptive and arguably ineffective as Trump’s policies were during his one term in office, including costly trade wars with China and Europe and the final death knell to global trade rules, he is promising much more a second time around.

Trump has floated the idea of a 10 percent tax on all imports from all countries as well as a tax of as much as 60 percent on everything that comes from China. Former Trump trade officials have spoken of intensifying the Biden administration’s limits on technology exports to China and seem keen to move beyond de-risking economic ties with Beijing toward a full decoupling.