If a reelected President Donald Trump uses the existing Section 301 tariffs program to hike tariffs on all Chinese goods by at least 60%, that's likely to survive a court challenge, said two law professors who spoke during a Washington International Trade Association webinar on the executive branch's ability to make deals and impose trade restrictions without congressional say-so.
Mara Lee
Mara Lee, Senior Editor, is a reporter for International Trade Today and its sister publications Export Compliance Daily and Trade Law Daily. She joined the Warren Communications News staff in early 2018, after covering health policy, Midwestern Congressional delegations, and the Connecticut economy, insurance and manufacturing sectors for the Hartford Courant, the nation’s oldest continuously published newspaper (established 1674). Before arriving in Washington D.C. to cover Congress in 2005, she worked in Ohio, where she witnessed fervent presidential campaigning every four years.
Because China makes 90% of anode and cathode materials, and dominates processing of critical minerals, no matter where they are mined, recent hikes in tariffs on Chinese minerals will do little, trade experts agreed.
Predictions of inflation and lost exports if Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump re-wins the White House and imposes global tariffs are well-trod ground.
The Aluminum Association is pleased by the hike in Section 301 tariffs on aluminum products -- even though it applies to more products than it wishes were covered -- and says Mexico's reporting is helping with trade remedies covering Chinese, Russian and Belarussian steel.
Decoupling between the U.S. and China in the most technologically advanced products is real, economists said at an Oct. 21 Peterson Institute for International Economics event, but trade overall between the two countries continues to grow, if more slowly than trade with other partners.
A group of parents and other family members of those who overdosed on fentanyl are asking the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to double the 25% Section 301 tariffs on lists 1 and 2 under the existing Section 301 action, combined with no de minimis eligibility for all Chinese goods.
Officials from Squire Patton Boggs said that if Donald Trump returns to the presidency, a 10% tariff or higher on a vast swath of imports could come very quickly, but what wouldn't be subject to the tariffs is not yet clear.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, without naming Trump, criticized his economic approach, saying a broad-based tariff would be like a sales tax.
Donald Trump, in a lengthy interview with Bloomberg's editor-in-chief, tripled down on his tariff policy, calling the word tariff "the most beautiful word in the dictionary," and saying that his plan of a 10% tariff on all non-Chinese imports is not nearly enough to reverse factory closures.
President Donald Trump will be receptive to Sen. Bill Cassidy's proposal to impose a carbon border tax, predicted Dave Banks, a former energy and environment expert in the National Economic Council and National Security Council during the first Trump term.