An outline of a proposed budget from the president increases money for CBP and trade enforcement divisions at Commerce, while cutting money for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs, known as ILAB, the part of the Labor Department that works to identify forced labor risk and help combat it.
Former Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said he sees no risk that the United States will pull out of the U.S.‑Mexico‑Canada Agreement as the pact heads into its first joint review on July 1.
Metal producers hailed the changes to Section 232 treatment for derivatives, metal buyers expressed dismay, and a trade lawyer said the change from taxing the value of the metal to taxing the entire value "addressed an issue that has bedeviled importers."
President Donald Trump signed a series of executive actions Apr. 2 to set Section 232 tariffs on pharmaceutical products and charge a flat 25% rate for steel, aluminum and copper derivative products. The pharmaceutical tariffs will be set at 100% for patented drugs from companies without "most favored nation" drug pricing deals, though that rate may be reduced to 20% for companies that reshore their production to the U.S.
A proclamation issued by President Donald Trump April 2 creates a new "de minimis" exemption from Section 232 metals tariffs for some metal derivatives that contain less than 15% of Section 232 metal content by weight. The proclamation was issued alongside an executive order setting Section 232 tariffs on brand-name pharmaceuticals at 100%, though with exceptions for companies that onshore production.
The numerous conditions that the European Parliament put on a bill to lower EU tariffs on U.S. goods and to offer preferential access to some American agricultural products intrigued former trade negotiators, though they had conflicting opinions on how much the U.S. would adjust its approach as a result.
Informal guidance from CBP’s base metals Center of Excellence and Expertise on steel and aluminum valuation for Section 232 purposes is “advisory only and not binding,” a CBP spokesperson said.
Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., told an audience of libertarians that he argued in a closed-door meeting with other House Ways and Means Democrats that they should campaign on prices, and connect affordability to President Donald Trump's tariffs.
A group of exporters and importers represented by Taft asked the Court of International Trade to lift the stay on their cases seeking refunds for tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act so they can "explain the need to immediately refund" IEEPA tariffs "even for entries for which liquidation is suspended" due to ongoing antidumping and countervailing duty proceedings.
The leading trade hawk appointee in the Trump administration, Peter Navarro, said the loss at the Supreme Court on the legal underpinning of reciprocal tariffs was the best possible kind of loss "because the justices ratified and affirmed the use of every other statute we’ve been using."