Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday warned that China is treating the worldwide financial system as a dumping floor for its cheaper clear power merchandise, miserable market costs and squeezing inexperienced manufacturing within the U.S.

“I’m involved about world spillovers from the surplus capability that we’re seeing in China,” Yellen mentioned throughout a speech at a Georgia photo voltaic firm known as Suniva. “China’s overcapacity distorts world costs and manufacturing patterns and hurts American corporations and staff, in addition to corporations and staff around the globe.”

China has a surplus of solar energy, electrical automobiles and lithium-ion batteries that it could possibly ship out to different international locations at cheaper costs. That makes it tough for the extra adolescent inexperienced manufacturing industries of the U.S. and elsewhere to compete.

Yellen mentioned she intends to place strain on Chinese language officers about these commerce practices throughout her upcoming go to to China.

“I plan to make it a key difficulty in discussions throughout my subsequent journey there,” she mentioned. “I’ll press my Chinese language counterparts to take obligatory steps to deal with this difficulty.”

The secretary’s considerations come because the White Home tries to construct a burgeoning clear power business domestically with investments from the 2022 Inflation Discount Act, together with different laws just like the CHIPS and Science Act.

Yellen has usually touted the positive factors from these investments, together with at one other current speech the place she doubled down on the electrical automobile “increase” spurred by the IRA.

However these investments are taking part in catch-up with China’s authorities.

“The Biden Administration additionally acknowledges that these investments are new,” Yellen mentioned Wednesday.

In the meantime, China has been pouring billions into clear power for years, outpacing the remainder of the world within the power transition.

Yellen added that the extra China’s clear power glut interferes with world market costs, the more severe off provide chains for these power sectors will likely be.

“President Biden is dedicated to doing what we will to guard our industries from unfair competitors,” Yellen mentioned.

 The Chinese language Embassy in Washington didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Yellen’s feedback spotlight ongoing U.S.-China commerce rigidity at the same time as the 2 international locations attempt to regular relations.

President Joe Biden met with Chinese language President Xi Jinping in November as an olive-branch effort to interrupt the ice after years of rigidity, marked partly by a tariff warfare launched by former President Donald Trump.

Trump has floated reinstating vital tariff ranges on Chinese language merchandise if he wins a second presidential time period.

Within the time for the reason that Biden-Xi assembly, strengthening U.S.-China relations has confirmed a precarious effort resulting from ongoing cybersecurity and commerce considerations.

In February, Biden launched an investigation into Chinese language sensible vehicles, which he mentioned pose a nationwide safety danger as a result of they connect with U.S. infrastructure after they drive on American roads.

“China is set to dominate the way forward for the auto market, together with through the use of unfair practices,” Biden mentioned in a February assertion. “China’s insurance policies may flood our market with its automobiles, posing dangers to our nationwide safety. I am not going to let that occur on my watch.”