President Trump’s revision to the steel tariff in 2025 was meant to fix the tariff inversion problem – situations where we tariff steel imports, but not things made of steel. Putting a tariff on metal can imports, but not metal cans filled with food, is a perfect example of mindless tariff inversion driving offshoring. This precise problem was solved and settled in 1930, and Commerce and USTR can fix it at any time with existing authority.
Last week, the White House declared an emergency under Section 318 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and suspended, for eight months, the collection of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on phosphate fertilizer from the Kingdom of Morocco.
Before USTR borrows the tin cartel’s playbook, it should look to the American tradition of minimum import pricing — and beware the foreign imitations that ended in ruin.
USTR says the U.S. goods deficit with China fell 46 percent. But the goods didn’t stop coming — importers just declared them worth less. Treating customs “value” as an appraisal hides the undervaluation now driving the numbers.
This week, Scott Lincicome marked the 250th anniversary of The Wealth of Nations by recruiting Adam Smith into the free-trade lobby’s war on American tariffs. It’s a clever conscription, but it depends on erasing the most important fact about Smith’s world: when Smith attacked “mercantilism,” he was attacking a system America’s founders also rejected — and replaced with something Smith never imagined.
The clock is ticking on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. On July 1, 2026, the three parties are scheduled to sit down for the formal “joint review” required by the deal itself. Under the terms USMCA’s drafters wrote into the agreement, the entire arrangement automatically expires on July 1, 2036 unless every government affirmatively recommits to it.
When the trade deficit goes down, that must mean good news for American manufacturers, right? No, that can’t be assumed. In the year since Liberation Day, a familiar pattern has played out: the value of imports decreased, while the actual quantity of imports increased.
The Commerce Department should look to 7 C.F.R. Part 6 as a terrific example of how USDA has ensured that quota allocation benefits domestic manufacturers, not speculators.
CPA cautions against adopting a reciprocal tariff strategy aimed primarily at negotiating lower foreign trade barriers and more favorable investment conditions abroad. A reciprocal tariff strategy that prioritizes foreign governments’ willingness to reduce their trade barriers or be more receptive to foreign investment is in conflict with the stated goals of the America First Trade Policy Memorandum and undermines the predictability and stability American businesses need to confidently invest in long-term domestic production.
While the bill’s title suggests a crackdown on the unfolding de minimis catastrophe, in reality it would handcuff CBP’s ability to do anything about it.
