Biden's tariff holiday could leave China footing a massive bill in payback push

FIRST ON FOX: Ohio's two Republican senators say that Chinese companies avoided paying billions of dollars in taxes through a Biden-era tariff pause that has since been declared unlawful. 

Now, they're demanding that the Department of Homeland Security send the bill to China.

In 2022, the Biden administration issued a temporary pause on tariffs for solar panels originating in Southeast Asia, many of which contained components manufactured by Chinese corporations. 

"China has a strategy. They have state-subsidized business sectors, solar panels being one of them, in which they want to flood the global market, put everyone out of business, and then you're completely reliant on China for generation of energy that is connected to your electric grid, which can create instability around the globe," Sen. Jon Husted told Fox News Digital in an interview Tuesday. 

"They want dominance. They want to weaken America. They want to weaken the rest of the world by subsidizing these solar companies."

"This moratorium served as a unilateral tariff giveaway that benefited Chinese solar manufacturers operating through third-country routes to circumvent existing anti-dumping duty orders and rip the American economy out of billions of dollars," the senators wrote. 

"The total unpaid duties represent billions of dollars owed to the U.S. Treasury - the vast majority by Chinese state-backed companies that exploited the moratorium to flood the U.S. market with artificially cheap solar products."

"These products are not only second rate but pose a risk to our nation's national security and domestic manufacturing capabilities," they added.

Husted told Fox News Digital in a video interview Tuesday that he believes Chinese companies owe the United States $67 billion in tariff payments stemming from the voided moratorium.

Chinese solar manufacturing has long been a flashpoint for controversy.

Husted and Moreno claimed that Customs and Border Protection, which operates under DHS, conducted an internal review that found that "not a single entry admitted under the moratorium legitimately qualified for relief."

Their letter claims that CBP has "statutory authority" to "issue retroactive bills of duty plus interest."

"Look, the Department of Homeland Security has identified that this was an illegal move to avoid the tariffs that these Chinese state-backed companies owe," Husted told Fox News Digital. "So, we definitely have enforcement mechanisms to do that. I believe we solidly have the ability at the Department of Homeland Security to enforce the law, to hold these companies accountable and to make them pay the tariffs that are due."

A DHS spokesperson confirmed that the agency had received the senator's letters but declined to comment on whether it would follow through with their recommendations.

"We appreciate senators Husted and Moreno and their determination to shed light on the Biden administration's solar tariff moratorium," the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "We look forward to working with the senators on this crucial issue. DHS responds to official correspondence through official channels." 

The duo of senators is requesting that CBP publicly release its internal review, that it issue retroactive bills to the companies that benefited from the tariff pause and that the agency publicly release how much each importer owes.

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden's office for additional comment Tuesday.