Janet Yellen said she would “not rule out” raising trade barriers to protect US green tech businesses from Chinese competition.
The US Treasury Secretary is headed to Guangzhou and Beijing to meet top Chinese economic officials later this week, and plans to use the trip to call out officials over the glut of cheap Chinese green-tech products — such as solar panels, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries — being dumped on global markets at ultra-cheap prices.
Yellen said during a stopover in Alaska that these products were “all areas where we think that massive investment in China is creating some overcapacity”.
Referring to US companies, Yellen said: “We’re providing tax subsidies to some of these sectors and I wouldn’t want to rule out other possible ways in which we will protect them.”
Yellen said Europe, Mexico and Japan were also “feeling the pressure” from massive levels of Chinese investment in green tech.