USTR opens 2-day hearings to solidify legal basis for Trump-era tariffs

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative opened two days of hearings Tuesday on whether 60 economies failed to police imports made with forced labor. (ustr.gov) The hearings run April 28 and April 29 in the main hearing room at the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern. USTR said the proceedings are on the record, will not be livestreamed, and transcripts will be posted afterward. (ustr.gov) USTR launched the investigations on March 12 under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The agency said it is examining whether foreign governments’ practices are “unreasonable or discriminatory” and burden or restrict U.S. commerce. (ustr.gov 1) (ustr.gov 2) The 60 economies under review account for 99% of U.S. imports, according to the Associated Press report published April 27. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in March that U.S. firms have had to compete against producers benefiting from “artificial cost advantage” tied to forced labor. (usnews.com) (ustr.gov) These hearings are one piece of the Trump administration’s attempt to rebuild tariff authority after the Supreme Court blocked tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February. The administration replaced those duties with a temporary 10% surcharge under Section 122, which can last no more than 150 days without Congress. (usnews.com) (icontainers.com) Section 301 gives USTR a more established process: investigations, consultations, public comments and hearings, then potential tariffs or other trade restrictions. That makes any resulting duties likelier to rest on a firmer procedural record than the emergency-power tariffs the court rejected. (ustr.gov) (abcnews.com) A second Section 301 track is already queued up for next week. USTR said it will begin hearings on May 5 into structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors across 16 trading partners, including China, the European Union, Japan, Mexico and India. (ustr.gov 1) (ustr.gov 2) Those 16 economies account for 70% of U.S. imports, according to Erica York of the Tax Foundation, as cited by the Associated Press. China, the European Union and Japan appear on both the forced-labor and excess-capacity lists. (abcnews.com) (ustr.gov) For importers, the immediate date is not a tariff deadline but the close of the hearing record. USTR’s Federal Register notice says post-hearing rebuttal comments are due seven days after the last hearing day, before the agency decides whether to impose new duties. (ustr.gov) The hearings do not impose tariffs by themselves. They build the administrative record for a tariff strategy the White House is trying to make harder to knock down in court. (ustr.gov) (usnews.com)