The Trump administration announced on Mar. 11 that it will launch a new trade investigation into more than a dozen U.S. trade partners, an effort to circumvent the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, ruling them as illegal.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is launching formal probes under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which can result in a new set of import duties.
“These investigations will focus on economies that we have evidence appear to exhibit structural excess capacity and production in various manufacturing sectors, such as through larger, persistent trade surpluses or underutilized or unused capacity,” said U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer during a call with reporters Wednesday.
South Korea, the European Union (EU), Mexico, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Japan, and India are among the trade partners being investigated.
“We expect that this investigation will uncover a variety of unfair trading practices,” Greer added.
The administration seeks to uncover trade policies such as subsidies, suppressed employee compensation, issues such as digital services taxes, ocean pollution, and pharmaceutical drug pricing, among other possibilities. The investigations will also seek to ban imports made by forced labor.
The U.S. Department of Commerce has separate ongoing trade investigations under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act.
In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Trump administration has imposed a 10% flat tariff on all trade partners under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. The act authorizes the tariff to remain for no more than 150 days.
Greer told reporters that he aims for the investigations to conclude no later than the 150 days granted by the Trade Act.
On Thursday, South Korea’s parliament passed a $350 billion U.S. investment bill in response to the Trump administration’s Section 301 investigations in an effort to avoid potential increased import duties.
