There "very well could be" a trade deal announced this week, President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he traveled back from Florida to Washington on May 4, but he said these won't be tariff negotiations that lead to a signing ceremony, in most cases.

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.

Tariff rates above 200% essentially function “as an import ban” for some members of the American Apparel and Footwear Association because, at that price point, “companies don’t ship, they don’t import, they don’t make, they don’t buy,” the trade association’s head said on the Trade Guys podcast April 29.

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.

Exemptions from reciprocal tariffs for goods that were in transit on April 5 or 9 only apply to ocean vessels, CBP said in an April 30 update to its FAQ on the tariffs.

New tariff schedule subheadings may be added to the list of derivatives subject to Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs up to three times every year, with the first 60-day “inclusions” process beginning May 1, the Bureau of Industry and Security said in an interim final rule released April 30.

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