Correction: Republicans voted in the House to say that there will be no more calendar days in the rest of this session of Congress, through the end of 2025, in a procedural gambit directly blocking the ability of critics of President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada and Mexico to challenge that policy (see 2503110049).
Among more than 700 submissions to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative -- as the administration seeks to quantify the cost to American exporters and producers of trade barriers and unfair subsidies -- were just over a dozen from trade groups representing foreign companies, American chambers of commerce specific to foreign markets, and foreign governments.
The Border Trade Alliance asked the Commerce Department to refund duties paid by importers during the brief imposition of tariffs on Mexico and Canada last week.
A State Department notice declaring that all agency efforts to control international trade now constitute a "foreign affairs function" of the U.S. under the Administrative Procedure Act will ultimately be subject to the discretion of the courts, trade lawyers told us.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick asked a top executive at Norsk Hydro a few weeks ago when the company would open a primary aluminum smelter.
Reps. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., and Lizzie Fletcher, D-Texas, re-introduced a bill that would require the Treasury Department to study to what degree the tariff system is regressive, or hurts lower-income consumers more than more well-off consumers, and to what extent women's apparel faces higher tariffs than men's apparel.
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., introduced a bill that would direct the International Trade Commission to do an investigation on the effects of the 25% and 10% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, including on consumer prices, and the impact on small businesses and farmers, including due to retaliation from those countries, within a year of enactment. The bill lays out the sectors to be covered, and also asks the ITC economists to estimate the impact on domestic jobs and investment.
Nicholas Lamp, academic director of international law programs at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, told an audience of lawyers at Georgetown Law School that he questioned the premise of the panel he was speaking on -- that Canada and Mexico's approaches to trade with China would influence the future of USMCA.
President Donald Trump said the U.S. will "shortly" respond to EU retaliatory tariffs on U.S. whiskey with a 200% tariff on EU alcoholic beverages, including wine and champagne, if the EU whiskey tariff -- set to take effect April 1 -- isn't removed.
As the dust settles on the Trump administration's expansion of Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, industry and consumer advocacy groups responded with either glowing support or dour predictions of economic ruin.