U.S. shifts to 'managed trade' with China
Washington says it will move from broad tariff theatre to a narrower, transactional “managed trade” approach—using targeted duties as leverage on commerce, fentanyl and precursor‑chemical exports, U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer said, and he called progress so far “incremental.” (lokmattimes.com) Businesses are already pushing back: companies including Delta, Dell, Caterpillar, Ford and Jockey warned a fresh round of Section 301 tariffs would raise costs and complicate operations, and Conn Selmer plans to close its Eastlake, Ohio plant by the end of June, cutting about 150 jobs as production moves to China. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) (srnnews.com)
Washington is narrowing its China trade strategy into a deal-by-deal pressure campaign, using targeted tariffs instead of another across-the-board tariff fight. (usnews.com) (newkerala.com) U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told lawmakers this week that Washington wants “balanced trade” and a “managed trade relationship” with China, while describing progress so far as incremental. Greer was confirmed as the 20th U.S. trade representative on February 27, 2025, after helping run the first Trump administration’s China tariff and Phase One negotiations. (newkerala.com) (ustr.gov) In practice, that means using Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 as leverage against specific Chinese practices instead of treating every import category the same way. U.S. law lets the trade representative investigate foreign policies that burden U.S. commerce and then impose duties or other restrictions in response. (ustr.gov) The Biden-era and first-Trump-era tariff architecture never fully disappeared, and Greer is now layering narrower cases on top of it. The U.S. International Trade Commission’s current China tariff schedule, last updated February 25, 2026, still lists Section 301 duties across multiple product categories. (hts.usitc.gov) One target is fentanyl supply chains. A February 17, 2026 Congressional Research Service primer says China is now the primary source of precursor chemicals used by criminal groups, chiefly in Mexico, to make illicit fentanyl for the U.S. market. (congress.gov) That focus reflects how the trafficking route changed after Beijing’s 2019 class-wide controls on fentanyl-related substances. The same Congressional Research Service report says almost no fentanyl now enters the United States directly from China, but Chinese precursor chemicals still feed production abroad. (congress.gov) Business groups are warning that even narrower tariffs still land on U.S. companies that import parts, finished goods, or equipment from China. Companies including Delta, Dell, Caterpillar, Ford and Jockey told U.S. officials that fresh Section 301 duties would raise costs, disrupt supply chains and make their products harder to price. (msn.com) The pushback is colliding with a White House argument that tariffs can pull production back home. In Eastlake, Ohio, Conn Selmer said on January 7 that it planned to close its plant on or about June 30, 2026, while moving some brass-instrument production offshore; Reuters reported this week that about 150 jobs are being eliminated and some work is headed to China. (connselmer.com) (msn.com) Conn Selmer said the Eastlake shutdown would “improve our competitiveness” by concentrating U.S. professional brass production in Elkhart, Indiana, and percussion production in Monroe, North Carolina. The company also said the proposed closure was subject to negotiations with the union representing hourly workers in Eastlake. (connselmer.com) Greer has also been pairing the China message with a broader review of North American production rules, including talks with Mexico over offshoring and rules of origin under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The result is a trade policy that is less about one giant tariff wall than about using separate pressure points, one sector and one negotiation at a time. (usnews.com)
