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.
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?"
The following lawsuits were filed at the Court of International Trade during the weeks of March 17-23, March 23-30, March 31 - April 6, April 7-13, April 14-20 and April 21-27:
The U.S. offered its most fulsome defense of President Donald Trump's reciprocal tariffs to date, submitting a reply to a group of five importers' motion for a preliminary injunction and summary judgment at the Court of International Trade on April 29. The government argued that the text, context, history and purpose of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act lets the president impose tariffs and that IEEPA doesn't confer an unconstitutional delegation of authority to the president (V.O.S. Selections v. Donald J. Trump, CIT # 25-00066).
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.
International Trade Today is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
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.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order April 29 exempting all goods "subject to" International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs on Canada and Mexico from Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum.