President Donald Trump's administration has selected 60 of the US' largest trading partners to target with new import taxes that will replicate the tariffs invalidated by the Supreme Court last month.
The US Trade Representative's office (USTR) late on Thursday announced an investigation into 59 countries and the EU, alleging that these jurisdictions have not been diligent in banning imports of products produced by forced labor in third countries. "Despite the international consensus against forced labor, governments have failed to impose and effectively enforce measures banning goods produced with forced labor from entering their markets," USTR chief Jamieson Greer said.
USTR is citing its legal authority under Section 301 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1974, which allows targeting a foreign trade partner for unfair practices.
USTR already has launched a separate investigation into 12 of those 60 foreign jurisdictions. Collectively, all major US trading partners would be liable for high tariffs once the USTR completes these investigations in May. The list includes Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the EU, Norway, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia.
All those jurisdictions have been subject to emergency tariffs of 15pc and higher since last April. The US Supreme Court struck down those tariffs on 20 February. The US administration on the same day, citing separate authority under Section 122, imposed a 10pc tariff on all US imports. But those tariffs will only be in effect until 24 July. USTR is aiming to have the new Section 301 tariffs in place by that deadline.
The Section 301 process does not affect existing tariffs on steel, aluminum, cars and auto parts.
Trump and previous presidents routinely used Section 301 authority to address specific trade complaints, so the legal authority has not been challenged in court before. But a mass trade action simultaneously targeting dozens of countries in an effort to reverse-engineer invalidated tariffs may invite legal challenges.
"It won't surprise anyone that once again Trump is refusing to accept the reality of his loss and is desperately back at the drawing board trying to find any pretext he can to reclaim power the Supreme Court rightfully said he doesn't have," House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee ranking member Richard Neal (D-Massachusetts) said on Thursday.
On Friday, a coalition of dozens of states, including Oregon, asked a federal court to suspend collection of the Section 122 tariffs while a lawsuit against those temporary tariffs proceeds. Those states point to lengthy delays in obtaining refunds to the tariffs the Supreme Court struck down.
"It is likely impossible for plaintiff states to be made fully whole for the economic harm suffered each day that the unlawful Section 122 tariffs are in place," the states wrote in their legal filing.
