Editors note: this bill would be a significant challenge to the WTO most favored nation status system. While the bill does not have sufficient support to move, it may provide an education tool to move towards a new Way of managing international trade.
[January 24, 2019 | Inside US Trade]
Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) on Thursday introduced his controversial bill to expand the president’s authority to raise tariffs.
The Reciprocal Trade Act, which Duffy said has 18 co-sponsors, would allow the president to impose tariffs on a product-by-product basis. The legislation has White House backing.
According to the bill, the president would be able to take certain actions if the rate of duties imposed by a foreign country “is significantly higher” than the U.S. rate on a particular product, or if non-tariff barriers “impose significantly higher burdens … than the burdens of the nontariff barriers applied by the U.S.”
