Trade observers are waiting for more information about whether Aug. 1 tariffs on Canada and Mexico will include goods that currently qualify for duty-free treatment under USMCA, according to comments by Flexport officials during a July 16 webinar.
The president of Indonesia confirmed to reporters in Jakarta that he agreed to 19% tariffs, in exchange for buying more wheat, soybeans, fuel and Boeing aircraft.
The U.S. will set one tariff rate for "smaller countries" in a "notice of payment" without negotiation, President Donald Trump said.
CBP issued the following releases on commercial trade and related matters:
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative launched a Section 301 investigation on Brazilian policies that discriminate against American firms, naming these issues:
Former top trade negotiator Wendy Cutler, who, as a career employee in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative led on the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, said that South Korea can't make concessions to avoid 25% tariffs on its exports if the 25% Section 232 tariffs on autos and 50% tariffs on steel go unchanged in the deal.
President Donald Trump, after returning from a political event in Pennsylvania the evening of July 15, told reporters that Section 232 tariffs on pharmaceuticals will start "probably at the end of the month, and we're going to start off with a low tariff and give the pharmaceutical companies a year or so to build, and then we're going to make it a very high tariff, because we gotta move them here."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., co-sponsors of the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, which authorizes 500% tariffs on buyers of Russian energy products, praised President Donald Trump for his promise of 100% tariffs on products from countries buying Russian goods, if Russia doesn't stop its war in Ukraine.
Witnesses at a July 15 House hearing called for tariff measures to reduce Chinese dominance of critical mineral supply chains, with former Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., saying that tariffs on China were necessary to "protect strategic industries by penalizing bad actors and keeping the U.S. prices competitive."
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