Ahead of a long night of amendment votes on budget instructions to renew President Donald Trump's tax cuts, Democratic senators highlighted amendments that will say that new tariffs should expire if they raise prices on groceries, new houses and other goods. Those amendments, even if they gain a majority, do not actually change the laws that allowed the tariffs to be levied.
Correction: The list of products exempt from reciprocal tariffs doesn’t include furniture or cabinets, despite those products’ inclusion in the Section 232 report on lumber (see 2504020072).
President Donald Trump, from his home in South Florida, posted on social media throughout the day about the global and economic reactions to the tariffs. After the strong job growth numbers from March were released, he wrote, "GREAT JOB NUMBERS, FAR BETTER THAN EXPECTED. IT’S ALREADY WORKING. HANG TOUGH, WE CAN’T LOSE!!!"
China retaliated against President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs with duties of 34% on all U.S. goods, along with new export restrictions on U.S. companies and rare earth metals.
Republicans are not exactly turning against the dramatic tariff actions President Donald Trump is taking, but some are expressing hope that the reciprocal tariffs will be temporary cudgels to liberalize trade, and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, acknowledged that the free trade advocates in the Republican Party may not be right about that being where this is heading.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed a lawsuit on behalf of paper importer Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified, on April 3 challenging President Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose 20% tariffs on all goods from China. Filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Simplified laid out three constitutional and statutory claims against the use of IEEPA to impose tariffs and one claim that the tariffs violate the Administrative Procedure Act for unlawfully modifying the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (Emily Ley Paper, doing business as Simplified v. Donald J. Trump, N.D. Fla. # 3:25-00464).
With the White House announcing this week the end of the de minimis exemption for goods made in China starting next month, the U.S. will need to have the customs and trade infrastructure in place to handle significantly higher volumes of formal and informal entries, said Bernie Hart, vice president of customs for logistics provider Flexport.
Drawback will be available on recently announced reciprocal tariffs that take effect April 5 and April 9, CBP confirmed in an emailed CSMS message providing guidance on the tariffs. “Drawback is available with respect to the additional duties imposed pursuant to the Executive Order,” the CSMS message said.
The White House quietly released Annex III to President Donald Trump’s executive order on reciprocal tariffs yesterday, detailing Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings that will be used for the tariffs that take effect at 12:01 a.m. April 5 and April 9.
The White House released a pre-publication copy of President Donald Trump’s executive order on reciprocal tariffs, with Annex III to the order detailing Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheadings that will be used for the tariffs that take effect at 12:01 a.m. on April 5 and on April 9.