The House Homeland Security Committee released its budget reconciliation recommendations, part of the process to extend Trump tax cuts and possibly, add new tax cuts. That committee, however, is adding spending, both for screening cargo and hiring CBP Office of Field Operations officers.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a TV interview that "an agreement in principle" can be reached with 17 trading partners to prevent "the tariffs there from ratcheting back to the maximum level."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to answer questions about why he told Wall Street investors that the U.S. is looking to de-escalate the trade war with China, and asked him to confirm if other executives heard information about progress toward a trade deal with India.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked Apple CEO Tim Cook about his private lobbying on tariffs on Chinese imports, and the fact that the carveout for the tariffs for electronics affected phones, computers and smart watches, which Apple makes, but not video game consoles.
George Bogden, the executive director of CBP's Office of Trade Relations, is no longer employed at the agency, the administration said April 24.
CBP published more details of how it will collect duties or fees on imported packages worth less than $800 with Chinese goods in the public inspection pages of the Federal Register on April 24.
World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told former U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman that she had a meeting with USTR Jamieson Greer "yesterday that was a little bit comforting," but that the current 10% U.S. tariff on most countries, plus 25% tariffs on cars, steel and aluminum and some products from Canada and Mexico, and 145% tariffs on Chinese imports, if it lasts, will result in global merchandise trade falling by 0.2%. Before the actions, the WTO forecast a 2.7% growth in goods trade this year.
Comments from President Donald Trump and from a private talk by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on April 22 gave importers hope that the triple-digit tariffs on Chinese imports will drop soon. But Bessent, speaking to Bloomberg after a speech on April 23 at the Institute of International Finance, said there is no plan for the U.S. to drop its tariffs unilaterally, and that there is no timeline for engagement with China.
A Section 232 investigation on the national security threat posed by the import of medium- and heavy-duty trucks and their parts will collect comments for three weeks, through May 16.
The Commerce Department quietly launched an investigation into the national security threat of the import of trucks of gross weight of more than 10,000 pounds and components and systems for medium- and heavy-duty trucks, including engines and engine parts, transmissions and powertrain parts, as well as electrical components.