Customs attorney Dan Ujczo, who has contacts in the White House as well as clients who are major automakers, said he thinks the 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico over migration and fentanyl will continue past April 2, and will be stacked with auto tariffs and the reciprocal levies.
Trade facilitation appears to be taking a back seat to trade enforcement, based on recent actions taken by President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency to streamline federal operations, said a trade attorney during a March 26 webinar on tariffs and recent trade actions sponsored by Venable.
Reactions from across the U.S. automotive industry and the world poured in after President Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on all imports of automobiles beginning April 3.
Customs attorney Dan Ujczo, speaking to an audience of automotive industry compliance officials hosted by the Automotive Industry Action Group, cautioned that if the listeners' companies are exporting auto parts from Mexico or Canada, they shouldn't assume that they have until May 3 before 25% tariffs are going to bite. (This is assuming the parts currently qualify for USMCA and therefore are avoiding the 25% tariffs imposed on exports from those countries under the guise of a national emergency on fentanyl smuggling and migration.)
Additional 25% tariffs for cars and light trucks and cargo vans will take effect 12:01 a.m. ET on April 3, with tariffs on parts including engines and engine parts, transmissions and powertrain parts, and electrical components coming later, but no later than May 3, said an executive order issued by President Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump said at the White House that tariffs on imported autos, now at 2.5%, will go to 25%. He then signed an executive order, but that order was not yet posted online. The staffer who presented that order said the 25% tariff would be added to existing tariffs.
As the U.S., Mexico and Canada are poised to renegotiate the free trade agreement known as USMCA among the three countries, expect the U.S. to review the rules of origin and "tighten them" in favor of requiring a higher percentage of North American content, trade attorneys with Miller and Chevalier said on a March 25 webinar sponsored by public accounting firm Forvis Mazars.
At a hearing largely focused on the need to get other countries to lower their tariffs, sanitary and phytosanitary barriers, and discriminatory tariffs on services exports, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee focused on Trump's tariff hikes.
Apparel importers and retailers don't have much favor in this administration, but groups representing their interests tried to appeal to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's logical side in comments requested by the agency on the reciprocal tariffs slated for April 2. The trade group representing the greatly diminished domestic textile and apparel industry, in contrast, said reciprocal tariffs could be used to recoup $100 billion in annual lost sales.
National Association of Foreign-Trade Zones Chair Shannon Fura, a founder of Chicago law firm Page Fura, said the language in President Donald Trump's recent executive orders creating new tariffs, which say that goods must pay tariffs before entering FTZs, "are handcuffing some of the benefits" that FTZs are designed to provide.