Biden calls for higher Chinese metals tariffs

STORY: "They're not competing, they're cheating and we've seen the damage here in America."

U.S. President Joe Biden called for sharply higher tariffs on Chinese steel and other metals on a visit to Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

The Democratic president is campaigning through the swing state of Pennsylvania, and he used a stop in "Steel City" to attack Beijing for what he called unfair trade practices that were hurting American jobs.

“The prices are unfairly low because China's steel companies don't need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government subsidizes them so heavily. // My U.S. trade representative is investigating trade practices by the Chinese government regarding steel and aluminum. If that investment confirms these anti-competitive trade practices, then I'm calling on her to consider tripling the tariff rates for both steel and aluminum imports from China.”

If the talk of tariffs and threats of trade wars sound familiar, they should. Biden's Republican predecessor and current presidential challenger Donald Trump hiked import taxes on Chinese products in an effort to reach a trade deal with Beijing.

Now, Biden aides said the U.S. president was proposing further raising Trump-imposed tariffs to 25% on certain Chinese steel and aluminum products.

The measures invite blowback from China at a time of already heightened tensions between the world's two biggest economies.

A spokesperson for China's embassy in Washington, called the tariffs an "embodiment of unilateralism and protectionism," adding that the U.S. government was "making the same mistake again and again."

In the same speech, Biden also pledged that Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel would remain a "totally American company,"

“American owned, American operated by American Union steelworkers, the best in the world. And that's going to happen, I promise you.”

U.S. Steel Corp has agreed to be bought by Japan's Nippon Steel for $14.9 billion, but the deal has been described as on life support since the Democratic president announced his opposition last month.