By David Lawder
July 27 (Reuters) – U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Monday President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on 60 trading partners over their alleged lax enforcement of forced labor bans will likely not have an economic impact in part because the rates of 10% or 12.5% are similar to recent global tariff actions.
Greer told Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Brett Baier” that the new Section 301 duties are imposed on a smaller group of countries than a now-expired 10% temporary tariff, which was universal. But the agency has said that the forced labor duties would still cover 99.4% of U.S. imports.
“Well, I don’t think it has an impact at all,” Greer said when asked if the tariffs would impact the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decision-making this week.
“Now we have a set of tariffs, it’s on a smaller set, it’s not the whole world. A lot of the rates are pretty similar, so it should not have any economic impact that’s different than what we’ve been experiencing.”
Greer said that USTR was continuing to work on another broad tariff investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, targeting excess industrial capacity into 16 key trading partners, including China, Vietnam, Mexico and the European Union. He said, “We’re going to finish up that investigation hopefully soon, and we’ll make a proposal,” and added that this could lead to additional tariffs.
Greer defended the use of Section 301, a country-specific unfair trade practices statute, on broad tariffs, saying that the U.S. Supreme Court pointed to it in its decision striking down Trump’s broad tariffs imposed under a national emergencies law. During Trump’s first term, Section 301 was invoked to impose steep duties on Chinese goods that remain in place despite several court challenges.
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Chris Reese and Cynthia Osterman)
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