evidence: Saying he intends to protect American jobs and strategic industries, President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced major increases in tariffs on a range of goods imported from China, including electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar panels, steel and aluminum. [...] The tariff conundrum: Some critics of the Biden tariff decision echoed earlier complaints about the Trump tariffs, including the charge that they function as a tax on consumers that will delay the implementation of much-needed environmental policies and technologies. "This is horrible news for American consumers and a major setback for clean energy," said Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado. But some on both the left and the right said tariffs are needed to protect U.S. participation in the industries that will define the future. David Dayen, executive editor of progressive magazine The American Prospect, said that Biden’s effort at industrial policy makes the tariffs a necessity, at least in the short run. "[I]f you’re the White House, and you’ve just committed hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to creating a homegrown electric-vehicle industry and an entire ecosystem of batteries and minerals around it, you might want to make sure that commitment doesn’t go completely to waste," he wrote.