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The Biden administration plans to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles imports from 25 per cent to 100 per cent, as it intensifies efforts ahead of the US election to protect American industry.

The administration is expected to announce the move, and other tariffs on clean energy imports, on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the situation.

The sharp rise in the levies comes amid mounting concern that China could flood the US market with cheap EVs, threatening the American car industry. President Joe Biden has taken several actions in recent months to convince union members in swing states that he will protect jobs.

The Biden administration has for three years been reviewing the tariffs that then president Donald Trump put on imports from China as part of the trade war he launched in 2018. The new EV tariffs will be announced alongside the conclusion of the review, led by the US Trade Representative.

During a visit last month to Pennsylvania — a swing state in November’s election — Biden said he wanted the agency to triple tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium. USTR also recently opened an investigation into unfair practices in the Chinese shipbuilding industry following a petition from the United Steelworkers union.

But the decision to increase tariffs on EVs comes as the administration becomes particularly concerned that China is moving far ahead in the green industrial sector, including in the production of solar panels.

“The Biden administration is trying to get ahead of the curve and ensure that the US car industry does not suffer the same fate as the US solar industry, which was virtually decimated by unfairly traded Chinese imports,” said Wendy Cutler, a former trade official and vice-president of the Asia Society Policy Institute. 

Cutler said Chinese carmakers had been prepared to swallow the cost of the existing tariffs in an effort to “cripple” their US competitors, but the higher tariffs would make that much harder.

“A quadrupling of this tariff rate, however, would more effectively shield US auto manufacturers from unfairly traded Chinese vehicles before they can gain a foothold in the US market,” Cutler said.

The Biden administration has poured billions of dollars into subsidies for EV and battery production in the US — an effort to spur investment in a domestic clean tech sector as part of a strategy to reindustrialise the rust-belt, slash carbon emissions and break dependence on Chinese supply chains.

In February, Biden also ordered an investigation into whether Chinese “connected vehicles” — a growing category of vehicles connected to the internet that includes EVs — posed a national security risk to the US.

The tariffs are the latest action by the administration that show how Biden is continuing to impose costs on China at the same time that Beijing and Washington pursue efforts to stabilise relations following a summit between the US president and Chinese President Xi Jinping last year.

News of the tariff increase comes after the US and China, the world’s two biggest emitters, said this week they would “intensify” co-operation on climate-related issues, including the rollout of green energy.

The decision to increase tariffs was first reported by Bloomberg.

Former White House official Steve Bannon’s appeal of his contempt of Congress conviction was denied Friday, meaning he will still have to serve jail time for ignoring a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. 

In a 20-page opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a three-body panel, said granting Bannon’s appeal would “hamstring Congress’s investigatory authority.”

Bannon claimed he acted on the advice of his legal team and did not intend to break the law. Judge Bradley Garcia wrote that acting on “advice of counsel” defense is “no defense at all.”

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“As both this court and the Supreme Court have repeatedly explained, a contrary rule would contravene the text of the contempt statute and hamstring Congress’s investigatory authority,” Garcia wrote. “Because we have no basis to depart from that binding precedent, and because none of Bannon’s other challenges to his convictions have merit, we affirm.”

Bannon, 70, was sentenced to four months in prison in October 2022, and a $6,500 fine for ignoring the congressional subpoena. 

“I want to say one thing — I respect the judge, the sentence he came down with today is his decision. I’ve been totally respectful to this entire process on the legal side,” Bannon said after the sentencing.

Bannon will appeal Friday’s ruling, his attorney, David Schoen, told Fox News Digital. 

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Steve Bannon, former advisor to President Donald Trump, appears in Manhattan Supreme Court. (Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images)

“There are many fundamentally important constitutional issues at stake in this case,” Schoen said in a statement. “Today’s decision is wrong as a matter of law, and it reflects a very dangerous view of the threshold for criminal liability for any defendant in our country and for future political abuses of the congressional hearing process.”

Schoen noted that Bannon’s attorney at the time he received the subpoena, Robert Costello, advised his client that he was not permitted, as a matter of law, in any way to respond to the notice, saying executive privilege had been raised and that it was not his privilege to waive it. Costello wrote the committee to inform them that Bannon would comply if the panel worked out any privilege issues with former President Trump or if a court ordered him to comply, Schoen said. 

“In America, we do not criminally prosecute, let alone convict and send to prison people who not only don’t believe their conduct to be wrongful or in violation of the law, but, as in this case, people who follow the advice of their lawyers who tell them that the law does not permit them to comply with a congressional subpoena when executive privilege has been invoked,” Schoen said.

Steve Bannon, former adviser to Donald Trump, waves to members of the media as he departs federal court in Washington, D.C. (Craig Hudson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Other officials who served under Trump have reported to prison. Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro began his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress at a Miami correctional facility in March. 

“I will walk proudly in there to do my time,” Navarro said during a press conference before turning himself in. “I will gather strength from this: Donald John Trump is the nominee.”

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Shares in Novavax doubled after Sanofi struck a licensing deal worth up to $1.2bn to commercialise the struggling Covid-19 vaccine maker’s coronavirus jab and use the technology to develop its own combined shot with flu.

Novavax shares were up about 100 per cent in Friday afternoon trading in New York at $8.86, moderating from a gain of as much as 146 per cent earlier in the session, following the announcement. The agreement also prompted the US biotech to remove a “going concern” notice that was issued a year ago and had put pressure on the stock.

The partnership strengthens Sanofi, one of the world’s largest vaccine makers by sales, in the post-pandemic Covid jab market, where pharmaceutical groups are increasingly focused on combined shots against two or more infectious diseases.

Under the agreement, Paris-based Sanofi would lead the sales push of Novavax’s Covid jab from next year in most countries and have the rights to combine the US biotech’s protein-based vaccine technology with its flu shots and other infectious disease jabs, the companies said on Friday.

Novavax will receive an upfront payment of $500mn in cash and an equity investment, and will stand to receive the remaining $700mn upon the completion of certain regulatory and development milestones.

Sanofi will take a roughly 5 per cent stake in Novavax. Novavax will also benefit from a double-digit percentage of royalties from the sales of its Covid jab as well as any combined shot using its technology, but Sanofi will take the majority of revenues.

“We’re excited by the prospect of combining Novavax’s adjuvanted Covid-19 vaccine that has shown high efficacy and favourable tolerability, with our rich portfolio of differentiated flu vaccines that have demonstrated superior protection against flu and its serious complications,” said Jean-François Toussaint, who heads Sanofi’s vaccine research and development.

Touissant said the combined shot would offer patients “enhanced convenience and protection against two serious respiratory viruses”. Sanofi had a Covid booster vaccine approved by the European Medicines Agency in 2022 but it has struggled to make a dent in the market.

The licensing agreement caps a tumultuous period for Novavax, whose market value boomed to more than $40bn at the height of the pandemic, propelled by investor excitement over its Covid shot. But it has since had most of its value wiped out.

The vaccine maker has undertaken a $1.1bn cost-cutting drive in the past year to stave off a possible bankruptcy and has faced pressure from an activist investor for a board shake-up.

Novavax suffered from a series of mis-steps with the launch of its Covid vaccine, which was late to market because of a sluggish approval process. It then faced collapsing demand as governments withdrew from procurement deals.

Its vaccine, a more traditional protein-based formulation combined with an adjuvant to boost its effectiveness, has been pitched to patients as a counterpoint to mRNA jabs from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna that have inspired vaccine scepticism over rare side effects. But sales have lagged.

“Novavax is now in a stronger position to refocus our efforts on leveraging our technology platform and novel adjuvant,” said John Jacobs, Novavax chief executive.

Novavax will still be allowed to press ahead with the development of its combined Covid-flu shot, which is set to enter late-stage trials in the second half of this year.