Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz told commerce deputy secretary nominee Paul Dabbar that, as "an experienced dealmaker," he hopes Dabbar will help to secure "freer and fairer trade with our allies, not across-the-board protectionism" -- and to also argue for that approach.
Hogan Lovells lawyers, speaking to an audience from the Massachusetts Export Center, said that conservative Supreme Court justices' desire to curtail executive decision-making through the "major questions doctrine" could put a stop to tariffs on countries around the world levied via the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.
The Senate had a tie vote, 49-49, as it took up the question of revoking the trade deficit emergency President Donald Trump declared, which underpins his decision to put 10% tariffs on every country except Canada, Mexico and China, and 125% on China.
Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who helped Republicans recapture the House majority in 2022, said Congress will seek to intervene if the administration seeks to re-implement the high country-specific reciprocal tariffs that it had planned but paused for 90 days.
The nominee to lead CBP, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, told the Senate Finance Committee that during high school in Nogales, Arizona, a lot of his friends' parents were customs brokers, so he saw the importance of free-flowing goods across borders.
Ahead of a late afternoon vote to end the trade deficit emergency that the president used to impose 10% tariffs on all countries other than Canada and Mexico, and used to impose 125% tariffs on Chinese imports, resolution co-sponsor Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said all Democrats will be voting in favor of "rolling back Donald Trump's ability to use an emergency declaration to play 'Red Light, Green Light' with tariffs and wreck our economy. The question is, how many Republicans will join us?"
Auto companies are feeling like they're being yanked around with ever-changing tariffs, said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who was a senior public affairs executive at GM before becoming a politician. "Every business, whether small business or large business, needs certainty," she said, but instead, lawyers are scrambling to figure out what the impact is of the changing tariffs. She said she has talked to lawyers every day since this began.
Former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who served in that role in President Donald Trump's first term, told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations that he thinks "there’s a reasonable chance the CIT would enjoin" tariffs levied under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. Trump used IEEPA to levy 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico over fentanyl and migration, as well as 20% tariffs on China over fentanyl, and used it to levy 10% tariffs on countries other than those three, and an additional 125% tariffs on Chinese goods.
Automakers who build cars in America and import parts to do so will get a partial credit against the costs of 25% Section 232 tariffs on non-USMCA qualifying parts -- but the Commerce Department will examine companies' projections of both how many cars and light trucks they expect to build in the U.S. between April 3, 2025, and April 30, 2026, and the aggregate value of the MSRP of those vehicles.
Automakers who build cars in America and import parts to do so will get a partial credit against the costs of 25% Section 232 tariffs on non-USMCA qualifying parts -- but the Commerce Department will examine companies' projections of both how many cars and light trucks they expect to build in the U.S. between April 3, 2025 and April 30, 2026, and the aggregate value of the MSRP of those vehicles.