Section 301 Investigations

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At the direction of President Donald Trump and due to recent progress in trade negotiations with China, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced that the Section 301 duty rate for certain products imported from China “will remain at 10 percent until further notice.” The announcement will be formally published in the Federal…

On February 27, 2019, Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), testified before the House Ways & Means Committee on U.S.-China trade relations. In his brief opening statement, the ambassador stated that the United States “can compete with anyone in the world but we must have rules – enforced rules – that make sure…

President Donald Trump announced via Twitter on Sunday, February 24, 2019, that he will be postponing the scheduled March 2, 2019, increase in Section 301 tariffs from 10 to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of imported Chinese products due to “substantial progress” in ongoing trade negotiations between the two countries. While the postponement is…

On February 15, 2019, President Trump signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019 (Act) that fully funds the government for the remainder of the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2019. With Congress and the president agreeing on these appropriations, a second partial government shutdown was averted. Included in the Act is a provision authorizing additional…

In his second State of the Union address to Congress, President Donald Trump noted that he campaigned on several core promises, including “to defend American jobs and demand fair trade for American workers.” He argued that his administration has “moved with urgency and historic speed to confront problems neglected by leaders of both parties over…

The Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress, has released an overview report, International Trade and Finance: Overview and Issues for the 116th Congress, in which it offers a brief review of President Donald Trump’s first two years in office and policy issues that the new 116th…

With the 35-day partial federal government shutdown ending on January 26, 2019, the U.S. government’s trade-oriented agencies have reopened and are beginning to work through massive backlogs of work as personnel resume full-time operations. What follows is a listing of the current operational status of many of these agencies:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)…

This month, two bills have already been introduced in the House of Representatives that show the division among Republican Party members over President Donald Trump’s authority to impose tariffs. On one side of the debate, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) introduced the Global Trade Accountability Act of 2019, which seeks to restore Congress’s constitutional authority over trade and international commerce, including approval on tariffs, duties and quotas. In a brief statement, Davidson stated that the bill seeks to “support the President’s Constitutional authority to negotiate trade deals, and restore Congressional responsibility for reinforcing, improving, and approving trade policy.” The bill would require congressional approval for any “unilateral trade action” by the president – including any of the following actions concerning the importation of an article: (i) a prohibition on the importation of the article; (ii) the imposition of or an increase in a duty applicable to the article; (iii) the imposition or tightening of a tariff-rate quota applicable to the article; (iv) the imposition or tightening of a quantitative restriction on the importation of the article; (v) the suspension, withdrawal or prevention of the application of trade agreement concessions as to the article; or (vi) any other restriction on the importation of the article. Before such trade actions could be implemented, the president would be required to submit to Congress a report providing sufficient details on the proposed trade action, and a joint resolution would have to be approved. Davidson previously introduced the bill in the last session of Congress but the legislation did not advance. It is possible, however, that there may be a shifting of congressional direction on this matter given the ongoing trade dispute with China and recent statements from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that he, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, intends to introduce legislation that would limit the president’s authority to impose tariffs.
Continue Reading Competing Tariff Bills Introduced in Congress

Three weeks after the partial federal government shutdown began and shuttered most of the trade-related government agencies in Washington, D.C. (see Trump and Trade Update dated December 26, 2018), the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) – which had remained fully operational – has indicated that it will begin to furlough staff on…

International trade and international trade disputes were a predominant focus of President Trump and his trade officials throughout 2018. Thompson Hine’s Trump and Trade team has prepared a slide presentation to provide our readers with a broad overview of the most significant trade actions taken by the Trump administration last year. From the renegotiation of…