Washington | Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar effort to invigorate American manufacturing and speed a transition to cleaner energy sources is colliding with a surge of cheap exports from China, threatening to wipe out the investment and jobs that are central to the president’s economic agenda.

Biden is weighing new measures to protect nascent industries including electric vehicle production and solar panel manufacturing from Chinese competition. This week in Pittsburgh, the president called for higher tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium products, and announced a new trade investigation into China’s heavily subsidised shipbuilding industry.