Jeffries: ‘We Can Take a Look at’ Ensuring Inflation Reduction Act’s Green Provisions Don’t Boost China

On Monday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) responded to concerns that the green provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act are a boost for China because they have the minerals that are needed for electric vehicles and batteries and whether more should be done to move that production back to the U.S. by stating that it’s “something that we can take a look at in the context of a broader approach in terms of industrial policy to bring jobs back to the United States of America.”

Co-host Steve Liesman asked, “There’s a Wall Street Journal editorial this morning that says this is all a big gift to China, in that China has all of the minerals that we need for electric vehicles and for batteries. Should we be doing more to on-shore that production?”

Jeffries responded, “Well, that’s certainly something that we can take a look at in the context of a broader approach in terms of industrial policy to bring jobs back to the United States of America. That was the centerpiece of the CHIPS and Science Act. We recognized that semi-conductor production was heavily concentrated in the Far East in Taiwan and China. That was a geopolitical problem, a strategic problem, as well as an economic problem. And so, in the context of trying to figure out, more broadly, how do we bring domestic manufacturing jobs and other jobs back to the United States and reverse the trend of them going in the other direction for decades, I think that’s a good thing and a reasonable thing to explore.”

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