The US administration has opened a new set of trade investigations targeting 16 trading partners – including Mexico and China – over alleged unfair trade practices and industrial overcapacity that the White House claims is undermining American manufacturing, according to a FreightWaves report.
Announced by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on 11 March, the investigations were being conducted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a law allowing the US government to impose tariffs or other trade penalties if foreign policies were found to harm domestic commerce.
The probe would examine if the targeted economies were producing more goods than their domestic markets could absorb and exporting the surplus to the USA – potentially suppressing wages, distorting prices and discouraging investment in US factories, the 12 March report said.
The 16 trading partners under investigation are: Bangladesh; Cambodia; China; the European Union (EU); India; Indonesia; Japan; Malaysia; Mexico; Norway; Singapore; South Korea; Switzerland; Taiwan; Thailand and Vietnam.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer said the investigations would determine if policies such as government subsidies, state-owned enterprises or labour practices created unfair advantages for foreign producers.
Mexico’s inclusion in the probe could complicate trade relations within the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the report said.
Canada, the second-largest US trading partner, would not be investigated, according to a 11 March Reuters report.
The new investigation could lead to additional tariffs or expanded restrictions on Chinese goods, Reuters wrote on 11 March.
The investigations follow a Supreme Court decision on 20 February striking down the sweeping global levies introduced by Trump last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
After the ruling, the Trump administration imposed new temporary 10% trade penalties on US trading partners under Section 301, scheduled to expire after 150 days unless extended, the FreightWaves report said.
The USTR was scheduled to open a public comment period on the new investigations on 17 March, with hearings set to begin on 5 May and conclusions expected within around 150 days.
Meanwhile, a coalition of 24 US states and several companies including Japanese gaming giant Nintendo and US retail conglomerate Costco have filed a lawsuits against the Trump administration’s new temporary 10% tariffs, FreightWaves reported on 9 March.
Filed on 5 March in the US Court of International Trade, the 24 states were claiming that the US administration had unlawfully imposed the broad tariffs without congressional authorisation, violating the Constitution’s provision that Congress – not the president – held the power to introduce duties and taxes on imports.
The lawsuit named US President Donald Trump, the US Department of Homeland Security, US Customs and Border Protection and several federal officials as defendants.
State attorneys contended that Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act was only for narrow use during balance-of-payments crises tied to currency instability.
The states also claimed the tariffs imposed since 24 February had raised costs for state governments and increased prices on imported goods and components used by public agencies.
In its lawsuit against the government filed on 6 March, Nintendo set out to seek refunds for tariffs it paid on imported products, according to an Aftermath report on the same date.
Nintendo was asking the court to refund “with interest” the tariffs it paid.
More than 1,000 companies had filed similar lawsuits seeking refunds of tariffs they claimed had been illegally collected, the report said.
