The first law ever passed by the Congress of the United States after the act prescribing the oath of office was a tariff.

The Tariff Act of July 4, 1789, signed into law on the thirteenth anniversary of the Declaration itself, announced its purpose in its opening line: the “encouragement and protection of manufactures.”

Before a Bill of Rights, before a judiciary, before a national bank, the Founders reached for the tariff: a clear demonstration of what they believed independence required.

They had learned the lesson the hard way. The American colonies began their life as export colonies for England. Jamestown survived only when it began growing tobacco as a cash crop for the English market. The richest families of early America were planters and the merchants, and they made their fortunes in the export trade.

But an export class is always dependent on the goodwill of the receiving market. A new tax, a shift in demand, the emergence of a rival supplier: any of these can turn a profitable export industry to total ruin. After more than a century as a dependent export colony, Americans had enough. The time had come for American resources to be spent in America. The time had come for Americans to manufacture their own products and set their own commercial policy.

The years under the Articles of Confederation drove the point home. Thirteen states, each setting its own commercial policy, were helpless against British trade discrimination after a hard-fought war for independence. The Constitution was, in no small part, the recognition that the states had to surrender commercial power to a national government capable of negotiating, retaliating, and protecting. Without the unified power to tariff, political independence would remain commercially hollow.

Madison saw the stakes clearly. In Federalist No. 10, he wrote that “the regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation,” and he named the question directly: “Shall domestic manufactures be encouraged, and in what degree, by restrictions on foreign manufactures?” This clash over commerce constitutes the national debate over which interests to favor, and how to balance them.

This is not a footnote to statecraft. It is among the most important areas of political confrontation within any great state.

The tariff has stood at the forefront of American politics for 250 years because it is about far more than tax policy. It is the instrument by which a nation decides whether its future will be built at home or abandoned to others.

(For a complete history of battles over Commerce within the United States, see Douglas Irwins Book Clashing Over Commerce)

The historical record vindicates the protective view. Whatever the vulgar economists have insisted, the tariff guarded the nation’s independence across two and a half centuries, allowing American industry and American manufacturers to rise until the United States led the world. The men who built that consensus understood, in their own words, that the tariff and independence were one and the same.

Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, 1791:

“Not only the wealth, but the independence and security of a country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures.”

Henry Clay, In Defense of the American System, 1832:

“Gentlemen deceive themselves. It is not free trade that they are recommending to our acceptance. It is, in effect, the British colonial system that we are invited to adopt; and, if their policy prevail, it will lead, substantially, to the recolonization of these States, under the commercial dominion of Great Britain.”

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Dr. Edward Wallace, 1859:

“I was an old Henry Clay tariff whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject, than on any other. I have not since changed my views.”

William McKinley, 1890:

“We lead all nations in agriculture; we lead all nations in mining; we lead all nations in manufacturing. These are the trophies which we bring after twenty-nine years of a protective tariff. Can any other system furnish such evidences of prosperity?”

Donald Trump, 2024:

“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff.’”

After 250 years, the United States has not ceased to clash over commerce. Nor should it. But we have never ceased dedicating ourselves to the cause of independence, and the tariff remains the most fundamental means of securing it. History has proven, time and again, that national security and economic independence are inseparable.

So as we mark 250 years of American independence, let us fight for 250 more. Let us fight for a world where the decisions over our future do not depend on the industry of the Chinese Communist Party or any other competitor. Where the future of our children, and our children’s children, is decided within America, in institutions that champion freedom of speech, freedom of religion, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To protect what we hold dear, we must be economically secure. We must have the tariff.

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A word from our friends

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The Department of Justice is appealing the universal tariff refund order on the grounds that importers of record must sue to recover their money if it had previously reached final liquidation. On the other hand, Section 301 is under attack with the Supreme Court to decide as soon as June 11th the scope in which the President can use the Section 307 loophole to modify or terminate tariffs and other actions the USTR has launched to counter other countries unfair trade practices. This would severely hamper the President’s ability to address unfair trade practices in a rapid manner by narrowing the scope under which modifications on trade actions can take place after a successful 301 investigation. What this really means is the story thus far of the Administration. The President is determined to rebuild and protect American workers and industry, and yet the courts, the congress, and others are doing everything they can to stop him. While reindustrialization is well underway, the need for the American Protective Tariff League is becoming all the more clear, as a new generation of Protectionists advocates, writers, Congressmen, lawyers, and justices becomes all the more evident. Having a President like Donald Trump on your team is a huge win, but if he isn’t armed with a cadre of deeply knowledgeable Protectionist supporters across branches of government, such a President will be slowed down. This is the job of the league, to build this generation a cadre of Protectionists.

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TODAY’S STORIES

Justice Department Will Appeal the Universal IEEPA Tariff Refund Order

The administration told the Court of International Trade it will appeal a judge’s order requiring blanket refunds of all duties collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, arguing the court cannot compel repayment of duties that have reached final liquidation absent a suit by the importer of record. The appeal moves the fight off the administrative track and into the appellate courts, where the boundaries of executive tariff authority will be drawn. For domestic producers, the stakes are continuity: a tariff wall that holds is one that firms can plan capital around.

Inside U.S. Trade

USTR Opens a Section 301 Investigation Into Vietnam’s Intellectual Property Practices

USTR initiated a Section 301 probe into whether Vietnam’s failure to address long-standing concerns over IP protection and enforcement, spanning online piracy, counterfeit goods, border enforcement, and unlicensed software, is unreasonable or discriminatory and burdens U.S. commerce. The action follows Vietnam’s designation as a Priority Foreign Country in the 2026 Special 301 Report, with public comments due July 2. As the apparel and electronics belt shifts capacity into Vietnam, an enforcement tool that conditions that access on fair practice gives American producers a more level field.

Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

Trump Approves Critical-Position Pay to Staff the Critical Minerals Push

A May 29 presidential memorandum authorizes the Office of Personnel Management to allocate up to 400 high-pay positions, with basic pay set as high as $400,000, to staff investment programs tied to national security, including efforts to build domestic critical minerals capacity. Industrial policy is only as strong as the people executing it; the memorandum treats the talent to run minerals and supply-chain programs as itself a strategic asset. It is a quiet but concrete signal that the administration intends to resource the reshoring agenda, not merely announce it.

The White House

ITC Issues Determinations on Tin Mill Products From China, Taiwan, and Turkey

The International Trade Commission published its determinations in the antidumping and countervailing duty proceeding on tin mill products from China, Taiwan, and Turkey. The timing matters: it lands as U.S. Steel moves to restart tin production at its Gary Works, the domestic capacity that import relief is meant to protect. Trade enforcement and a mill restart in the same window is the policy working as designed, shielding a producer at the moment it recommits to American production.

Federal Register / U.S. International Trade Commission

Supreme Court Could Decide on June 11 Whether to Take the Section 301 “Modification” Suit

The Section 301 case known as HMTX Industries v. United States is set for the Supreme Court’s June 11 conference, with importers urging quick action to clarify the limits of the executive’s authority to “modify” existing Section 301 tariffs after the administration launched dozens of new investigations under the statute this year. A curtailing of the administrations Section 301 powers would greatly hinder the

Inside U.S. Trade

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice: International Trade Commission — Final-phase antidumping and countervailing duty investigations scheduled on freight rail couplers and parts from the Czech Republic and India. A domestic injury finding would seat duties on a rail-component supply chain central to U.S. infrastructure buildout. Read notice

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Antidumping and countervailing duty orders on citric acid and citrate salts from China continued after sunset review found dumping and injury would otherwise recur. Continuation keeps a long-standing shield in place for a domestic chemical producer base. Read notice

• Notice: Department of Commerce — USMCA binational panel review requested on antidumping duties covering certain oil country tubular goods, filed by Maverick Tube Corporation. The case tests whether the agreement’s dispute mechanism preserves or erodes relief for American steel pipe producers. Read notice

• Notice: International Trade Commission — Final-phase Section 337 investigation instituted on certain heavy machinery and components following a complaint. Section 337 remains a fast lane for excluding infringing imports and protecting domestic industrial equipment makers. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

A sunset-review week: the ITC instituted a wall of five-year reviews on June 1, all opening a single comment window that closes in early August.

• Aug 10 (new, closes in 70 days) — International Trade Commission: Five-year sunset reviews instituted on six order groups. Institution opens the window for domestic producers and trade associations to file the evidence that keeps these duties alive; failing to respond risks revocation and a return of underpriced imports. Methionine (France/Japan/Spain) | Cut-to-length carbon steel plate (China/Russia/Ukraine) | Potassium phosphate salts (China) | PVLT tires (S. Korea/Taiwan/Thailand/Vietnam) | Walk-behind lawn mowers (China/Vietnam) | Melamine (China)

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• Jun 4 — House Ways and Means: Hearing with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Tariff revenue, the IEEPA litigation, and the administration’s trade-and-tax agenda are all live questions for the secretary, making this the week’s marquee trade-adjacent appearance. Committee page

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8542: Offshore Parity Act of 2026. The bill touches energy-development parity rather than trade directly, and its referral to the Water, Wildlife and Fisheries subcommittee signals a long road; worth tracking only for any domestic-energy supply-chain implications. Referred to subcommittee. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

Committees quiet on trade this week.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On June 1, 1812, President James Madison sent his war message to Congress, opening a conflict whose British blockade severed America from foreign manufactures and spurred the homegrown industrial base that Henry Clay’s protective Tariff of 1816 was written to defend.

Tariff Times Daily is published by the American Protective Tariff League.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

People continue to be mislead about the reason that manufacturing is comparatively expensive in the United States compared to China. The key cost input is NOT labor. The largest factor in making manufacturing in the United States often prohibitively expensive is the high cost of raw materials. That is why Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s deal in Armenia is such an important win. The United States needs a shield for its domestic manufacturers, in particular its infant industries: that is the point of the tariff. At the same time, manufacturers need a good business environment, without prohibitive overregulation and permitting, and with competitive flowing supply of the raw materials needed to build their products. For our national security and long-term cost effectiveness, the United States cannot rely on our adversaries for critical minerals and processing facilities for raw material. At home, Norfolk Naval Shipyard broke ground on Dry Dock 3 modernization that will widen the country’s capacity to service the fleet at home. On Capitol Hill, eight Republican senators are supporting USTR Greer to use the USMCA review to harden North American auto rules against Chinese capital. Commerce also opened a new AD/CVD case on air compressors from China, Malaysia, and Vietnam, and posted the first Federal Register implementation of the U.S.-Taiwan trade and security framework. The day’s signal is consistent across each item: tariff policy is functioning as a coherent system, with industrial, diplomatic, and legislative pieces moving in tandem to ensure American workers and industry will prosper in the days and years to come.

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TODAY’S STORIES

Rubio Signs Critical Minerals and Transit Corridor Agreements With Armenia

Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed agreements in Yerevan on Tuesday covering critical minerals and rare earths cooperation as well as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a regional transit corridor running through southern Armenia. The minerals piece adds another producing country to the administration’s growing network of non-Chinese supply agreements, complementing the Quad framework, the Sweden technology understanding, and Project Vault. Each individual deal is modest; together they are beginning to form the architecture of a parallel supply system for the materials the U.S. industrial base needs.

Inside Trade — Armenia critical minerals signing

Norfolk Naval Shipyard Begins Dry Dock 3 Modernization

The Navy broke ground at Norfolk Naval Shipyard on Tuesday to begin modernization of Dry Dock 3, part of a multi-year recapitalization of the four public shipyards that sustain the fleet. Public shipyards have been operating with infrastructure that in some cases predates World War II; investment in dry-dock capacity is the kind of foundational industrial spending that has to happen if the United States wants a Navy that can be maintained at home rather than offshored to allied yards. The same skilled-trades labor pool now in demand at Lockheed’s Alabama interceptor plant and U.S. Steel’s Gary tin mill restart will be needed in greater numbers at Norfolk over the next decade.

DVIDS — Norfolk Naval Shipyard

Senate Republicans Press Greer to Harden USMCA Against Chinese Auto Capital

A group of eight Republican senators sent USTR Jamieson Greer a May 21 letter urging that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement joint review prioritize strengthened guardrails against Chinese investment in Mexico’s auto sector and roll back Canada’s proposed quota for Chinese-made electric vehicles. The letter frames Chinese capital flowing into Mexican assembly plants as a back-door pathway around U.S. tariffs and rules of origin, a structural risk the existing USMCA text does not adequately address. Strengthening rules-of-origin and ownership tests during this review is one of the cleanest mechanisms available to prevent the North American market from becoming a transshipment platform for subsidized Chinese production.

Senate Letter to USTR (May 21, 2026)

White House Ties Trades Resurgence to the Industrial Strategy

The White House released a statement on Wednesday tying the administration’s tariff and industrial policy directly to rising demand for skilled blue-collar workers, citing apprenticeship growth, trade school enrollment, and manufacturing payrolls as the leading indicators of the policy’s effects. The release describes the trades as the labor backbone of the reindustrialization the tariff regime is designed to produce, a framing that matches what readers of this newsletter see in factory-opening and groundbreaking coverage every week.

White House

CPA Pushes Back on the Froman Argument That Manufacturing Jobs Are Bad Jobs

The Coalition for a Prosperous America published a direct response to former USTR Michael Froman, who told a Council on Foreign Relations audience last week that manufacturing employment is no longer a desirable rung of the American labor market. CPA notes that average manufacturing compensation continues to exceed the broader private-sector average, that unionized manufacturing wages further outpace it, and that productivity in U.S. plants outpaces most international competitors. The exchange matters because the Froman frame is the rhetorical scaffolding for the case against tariffs; if the premise that factory work is undesirable does not hold, the case for outsourcing it does not hold either.

Coalition for a Prosperous America

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FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — Commerce: First implementation of the U.S.-Taiwan Trade and Security Agreement under Executive Order 14346, setting tariff-related procedures for goods traded under the framework. This is the first concrete Federal Register footprint of the administration’s bilateral trade-and-security model and a template for future agreements with other partners. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce: Initiation of antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on stationary and portable air compressors from China, Malaysia, and Vietnam. A new AD/CVD case against a tri-country sourcing pattern aimed at U.S. compressor producers; the geographic spread reflects how production has shifted as China-only cases mature. AD investigation | CVD investigation

• Notice — ITC: Institution of Section 201 monitoring investigation on fine denier polyester staple fiber, the periodic check on conditions in a domestic industry already under safeguard relief. The continued monitoring keeps the ITC’s posture active and signals to importers that the safeguard is not winding down quietly. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce: Amended preliminary AD determinations on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from Indonesia and Laos, with the Indonesia amendment relying on adverse facts available. Solar AD enforcement against Southeast Asian routes for Chinese cells continues to tighten, an important backstop for the domestic solar manufacturing base. Indonesia | Laos

• Notice — Commerce: Amended final results on certain aluminum foil from China for the 2023-2024 review period, correcting a ministerial error in the AD margins. The case is mature, but the steady cadence of margin corrections shows the AD regime continuing to do durable work behind the headline tariff actions. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

A thin Docket this week; the only imminent comment windows are Commerce’s annual defense-offsets reporting reminder and CBP’s Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset distribution notice.

• Jun 15 (new, closes in 18 days) — Department of Commerce: Annual reporting on offsets agreements tied to defense-article sales to foreign countries or firms. Defense exporters and their trade counsel should confirm internal records against the reporting threshold; the Bureau of Industry and Security uses this data in its industrial-base assessments. Read notice

• Jul 27 (new, closes in 60 days) — Department of Homeland Security / CBP: Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset distribution for FY2026 (the Byrd Amendment distribution). Domestic producers that supported the petitions underlying covered AD/CVD orders should review eligibility now and prepare their certifications. Read notice

ON THE HILL

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8780 — Critical Mineral and Extraction Tax Parity Act: Would extend tax treatment for critical minerals extraction and processing on par with other resource industries, lowering the after-tax cost of standing up domestic mines and refining capacity. Advances the American System agenda by treating mineral self-sufficiency as worth tax incentives, not just tariffs. Referred to House Ways and Means (May 13). View bill

• S 1473 — Stop Stealing our Chips Act: Targets unauthorized diversion of U.S. semiconductor technology, tightening the enforcement piece of the chips strategy that CHIPS Act subsidies alone cannot deliver. Held at the desk (May 21), one procedural step from Senate floor action. View bill

• HR 9028: Would bar brokers, dealers, and investment advisers with material connections to the People’s Republic of China from SEC registration. A financial-side complement to the trade and supply-chain restrictions, closing a channel through which Chinese state-linked capital reaches U.S. listed firms. Referred to House Financial Services (May 26). View bill

• HR 9042: Would promote development, production, and deployment of secure and resilient Unmanned Aerial Systems to support U.S. national security and Taiwan’s defense. Aligns the UAS industrial base with the broader push to reshore defense-critical electronics off Chinese supply. Referred to House Foreign Affairs (May 26). View bill

• House Armed Services FY2027 NDAA chair’s mark: Includes language directing the Defense Secretary to use Defense Production Act authorities for critical-minerals workforce development across mining, processing, and refining. Markup in HASC next week. Read chair’s mark

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

Ways and Means quiet on trade this week; the active Congressional trade signals today are the Senate GOP letter on USMCA and the HASC critical-minerals workforce language covered above.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 28, 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened to vehicular traffic, built from American steel fabricated by Bethlehem Steel in Pennsylvania, shipped through the Panama Canal, and assembled by American workers during the depths of the Depression; the bridge held the record for the world’s longest suspension span for nearly three decades.

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President Trump did what no other Republican President has done since WW2.

He FINALLY brought the Republican Party back to its roots. The GOP is finally the part of Abraham Lincoln once again. The party that champions American workers and American Industry. The party that stands with tariff men, who stand on a tariff platform.

John Cornyn and Thomas Massie were disloyal, impotent opponents to the President, and used their platforms to oppose the Presidents prosperity agenda. Tariffs make America strong. Tariffs are what Made America Great. And tariffs are the fundamental pillar of what made the Republican Party the dominant party during the period in which the United States became a world power. Thus fundamentally, Massie and Cornyn were not just enemies of MAGA, but enemies of the Republican Party itself.

The Republican Party is the historical home of workers and industry, and the historical home of Protection….

“In the days of Henry Clay, I was a Henry Clay tariff man, and my views have undergone no material change on that subject.”
— Abraham Lincoln, 1860

“I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles.”
— Abraham Lincoln, 1832 campaign statement

“Give us a protective tariff and we will have the greatest nation on earth.”
— Abraham Lincoln (1847 attribution)

“It has always been a fundamental principle of the Republican Party that this market should be reserved in the first instance for the consumption of our domestic products… Our only defense… is through a protective tariff.”
— Calvin Coolidge

“The Republican party is wedded to the doctrine of protection and was never more earnest in its support and advocacy than now.”
— William McKinley, Letter Accepting the Republican Presidential Nomination (1896)

Hopefully, the Massies and Cornyn’s of the world have learned their lesson.

Finally, with President Trumps leadership, we are the party of PROTECTION once again!

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The main goal of the American System, and of Protection, is the defense of American workers and industry. Protection and national security are thus hand in hand, and mutually reinforcing. Without national security, you cannot protect your people or your factories, nor the sovereignty needed to guarantee their future. But without industrial protection, demonstrated best by the tariff, you cannot adequately provide for your national security. This fundamental reality is part of why Washington is finally realizing what Americans across the nation have known from their on the ground experience; globalism did not work. Tariffs are the shield that protect the American people, our jobs, and our industry, from foreign adversaries such as the Chinese Communist Party. National Security is not complete without the protection of workers and industry provided by the tariff. Thus the story breaking today, of Lockheed Martin breaking ground on a new missile plant in Alabama, is precisely the kind of defense-industrial capacity that procurement and tariff policy are meant to rebuild at home. On top of this massive win, all eyes are on Texas, as The Tariff Times covered today Senator John Cornyn’s abysmal record on tariffs, and we all await the outcome of his runoff primary against Trump endorsed candidate Ken Paxton. If today goes anything like Trumps success in Indiana and last week in Kentucky, Paxton will likely win, and one of the biggest obstacles to a protectionist agenda will be eliminated. Here’s to more winning!

TODAY’S STORIES

Lockheed Martin Breaks Ground on New Missile Plant in Alabama

Lockheed Martin began construction on a new munitions facility in Alabama that will expand production of THAAD missile-defense interceptors, a segment of the defense industrial base that has run up against capacity limits for years. Rebuilding the domestic capacity to produce critical munitions is precisely the result that sustained industrial policy and defense procurement are designed to deliver, turning appropriations into physical plant and skilled work on American soil. Do not mistake this development as having no commercial benefit. National Security industrialization proceeds downstream demand for commercial and non-security related products, and produces skills in workers and managers that lead to future business and innovation opportunities. Thus national security investment that produces industrialization is a positive development, both in terms of keeping the United States safe, while also setting a foundation for quality jobs and industrial output for the future.

Reuters

Trump Backs Primary Challenge to Senate Finance Trade Chairman Cornyn

President Trump’s support for a primary challenger to Senate Finance international trade chairman John Cornyn follows the recent primary defeats of tariff critic Rep. Thomas Massie and Finance member Bill Cassidy, signaling a continued realignment of the congressional GOP around the administration’s trade agenda. For the durability of protectionist policy, a Republican trade bench that reflects the American System direction matters as much as any single tariff action, since legislative majorities will shape what future administrations inherit. The Tariff Times documents John Cornyn’s longstanding commitment against Protection for American workers and industry, and his explicit endorsement of a world with “zero tariffs.”

The Tariff Times

Navarro Defends Pentagon Loan Offer to Domestic Rare Earth Refiner

A proposed Defense Department loan to rare earth refiner ReElement, part of a $1.4 billion partnership with magnet maker Vulcan Elements to scale domestic rare earth magnet production, has drawn internal scrutiny, with trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly defending the offer. The episode shows how much work remains to stand up a domestic rare earth supply chain capable of substituting for Chinese refining and magnet output, the chokepoint that has constrained American manufacturers and defense suppliers alike.

Inside Trade

U.S. Streaming Firms Push Back on Canada’s Tripled Content-Spending Rule

Canada’s broadcast regulator, the CRTC, will require streaming services including Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and Disney to direct 15 percent of their Canadian revenue to local content, a sharp increase that U.S. industry groups and Washington have flagged as a trade concern. Other nations are within their rights to develop domestic industries, and content rules are a familiar tool; the question for U.S. negotiators is whether the measure operates as legitimate cultural policy or as a discriminatory barrier that warrants response under existing commitments.

Inside Trade

Nebius Breaks Ground on Gigawatt-Scale AI Factory in Missouri

Construction is underway on a gigawatt-scale artificial intelligence facility in Independence, Missouri, one of a wave of large compute centers now being built across the American interior. Domestic AI infrastructure is becoming a pillar of the home market Henry Clay described, drawing capital investment, construction employment, and demand for American-made power equipment and grid components into communities that need them.

Business Wire

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice (Amended Preliminary Determination): Commerce amended its preliminary less-than-fair-value finding on crystalline silicon solar cells from Laos to correct ministerial errors. Solar-cell dumping cases remain a front line in the effort to keep imported product from undercutting the domestic solar manufacturing that recent investment has aimed to build. Read notice

• Notice (Preliminary CVD Review): Commerce preliminarily found countervailable subsidies for producers of corrosion inhibitors from China for 2024. Confirming subsidy margins keeps duties in place on a Chinese chemical input and signals that administrative reviews continue to police state-subsidized imports. Read notice

• Notice (Court Decision / Amended Order): Commerce reports that the Court of International Trade sustained its remand determination on paper shopping bags from Colombia, and Commerce amended the antidumping order accordingly. The decision affirms the agency’s dumping methodology and preserves relief for domestic bag producers. Read notice

• Notice (Expedited Sunset Review): The ITC scheduled an expedited five-year review of the antidumping order on R-32 refrigerant from China. Sunset reviews determine whether lifting an existing order would let injurious dumping resume, and expedited handling generally points toward continuation. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

Sunset-review week: four ITC five-year reviews covering steel and pigment imports all close June 1, while Customs has opened its annual distribution of collected antidumping and countervailing duties to injured domestic producers.

• Jun 01 (closes in 6 days) — ITC: Five-year sunset reviews on steel nails (Malaysia, Oman, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam), steel grating (China), welded line pipe (South Korea, Turkey), and carbazole violet pigment 23 (China, India). These reviews decide whether long-standing antidumping and countervailing orders stay in force; domestic producers and their associations must file by the deadline to preserve the duties that shield them from a return of dumped imports. Steel nails | Steel grating | Welded line pipe | Carbazole violet 23

• Jul 27 (new, closes in 62 days) — CBP / DHS: Distribution of Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset for FY2026. Domestic producers eligible under the Byrd Amendment must file certifications to receive a share of collected antidumping and countervailing duties, turning enforcement into direct support for the injured industry. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

No House Ways and Means or Senate Finance trade hearings or markups appear on the 14-day calendar.

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 2715: Destruction of Hazardous Imports Act. The bill gives authorities firmer footing to destroy dangerous noncompliant imports rather than re-export them, advancing import-safety enforcement that protects consumers and compliant domestic producers alike. Ordered reported by the full Ways and Means Committee, 43 to 0, on May 21, an advance from the subcommittee action reported earlier this month. View bill

• HR 8959: Semiconductor Superiority Act. Aimed at strengthening domestic semiconductor competitiveness, the measure fits squarely with the reshoring of chip production that tariff and CHIPS policy have prioritized. Referred to Ways and Means on May 21. View bill

• S 1473: Stop Stealing our Chips Act. Targets theft and diversion of U.S. semiconductor technology, a defensive complement to domestic chip investment. Held at the desk on May 21, positioning it for floor consideration. View bill

• S 4611: Aligning the Job Corps with the defense industrial base. The bill would orient federal workforce training toward defense manufacturing needs, addressing the skilled-labor constraint that limits how quickly new plants can come online. Referred to the HELP Committee on May 20. View bill

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 26, 1896, Charles Dow published the first Dow Jones Industrial Average, a basket of twelve industrial companies that became the enduring barometer of the nation’s manufacturing economy.

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Today, Texas Republicans will decide whether John Cornyn will have the opportunity to return to the Senate for a fifth term. Over the past 23 years, Cornyn has been one of the fiercest advocates for free trade in the upper chamber, and has made it part of his agenda to dismantle the protection that built American industry and now sustains the American worker.

For instance, in April of last year, barely a fortnight after President Trump’s decisive action on Liberation Day, Senator Cornyn sat down with his local ABC News affiliate in Dallas and explained how hopeful he was that the 90-day pause on tariffs would give space to “negotiate, hopefully what amounts to zero tariffs.” He went further: “If we can get an opportunity to get to zero [tariffs] – to me that’s the goal.”

Perhaps you think this is a one-off. John Cornyn is not hiding what he is truly about. Later that same month, on CBS News Texas, Cornyn stated: “Ultimately, I think the goal should be zero tariffs, especially between friends and allies.” Zero tariffs? In the early days of the Republic, even most free traders recognized the need for some tariffs, even at low rates, as a means of raising government revenues and funding the federal establishment. Cornyn, by embracing a call for zero tariffs, is doing more than rejecting the historic engine of American development. He is pursuing a policy that is deliberately destructive of American industry, a policy that delivered us the China Shock, the post-1980 collapse of labor’s share of national income, and the fentanyl-saturated wreckage of communities across our nation.

This is not a man who has reluctantly come around to President Trump’s trade agenda. This is a man waiting it out, hoping that the next President will once again abandon American workers and industry, and embrace a vision of “free trade” that results in the devastation of our national security and the uplift of the Chinese Communist Party.

A Record, Not a Rumor

Senator Cornyn’s free trade convictions are not new and not subtle. In November 2016, after Donald Trump shocked the political establishment with the greatest political upset in modern American history, Cornyn told the Texas Tribune that he hoped “after emotions cool” the country would “take a more reasoned approach” to trade.

By a “reasoned approach,” Cornyn did not mean the American System of Protection, which built the United States into the industrial superpower it became in the twentieth century. He meant the approach that governed the Washington Consensus — the fantasy that free trade would transform nations like China into democracy-loving allies, eager to partner with the United States in spreading peace, love, and prosperity around the globe. Cornyn lamented that without voices “explaining the benefits of trade for everybody,” the “more shrill, less responsible voices” would fill the vacuum.

Translation: the voters who elected Donald Trump on a protectionist platform were shrill and irresponsible.

Cornyn’s record of selling out American workers and industry does not stop with his open-borders policy on trade. It extends to his open-borders policy on illegal immigration. In January 2017, when the first Trump administration floated a border adjustment tax to help fund the border wall, Cornyn led the Senate skepticism. He told reporters he had “concerns” and warned that a refiner had told him gasoline prices might rise by 30 cents. Cornyn was named in trade press as a key Senate obstacle to the proposal. The border adjustment tax died. The wall did not get built that term. The trade deficit with Mexico kept growing.

In March 2018, when President Trump invoked Section 232 to impose steel and aluminum tariffs to protect strategic American industry, Cornyn’s contribution to the national conversation was this: “My constituents are worried about the cost of their beer cans. It’s a concern.” A trade subcommittee leader from a state that produces steel, oil, and beef reduced the case for industrial protection to the price of aluminum cans on a Texas porch. It is the kind of unserious objection that defines a worldview.

In November 2022, as ranking member of the Finance Committee’s trade subcommittee, Cornyn went further still. He used his platform to advocate that the United States join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — the multilateral free trade pact that President Trump had wisely withdrawn the United States from in his first term. Three years ago, with USMCA freshly negotiated and the limitations of the old order increasingly clear, the senior senator from Texas was working to drag America back into the same trap.

Cornyn continued to hedge his bets on a post-Trump, open-borders Republican Party deep into 2024. While campaigning to replace Senator McConnell as Senate GOP leader last August, Cornyn told Axios that across-the-board tariffs were “problematic.” This was three months before the election in which the American people would once again elect President Trump on a mandate explicitly built on across-the-board tariffs.

Beyond standing against tariffs, Cornyn did not even have the decency to present a unified face for our country and the administration in early February 2025, when President Trump issued the first round of tariffs against Mexico, Canada, and China. There is a saying in Washington that “politics stops at the water’s edge” — that bickering should end and political leaders should present a united front when dealing with international relations, national security, and foreign policy. At this critical moment, Cornyn told the Texas Tribune: “It’s a little hard to separate the negotiation tactics from reality. There comes a point at which tariffs add cost to consumers.”

Beyond the reality that this is the standard caricature, recited from memory, the kind of objection that does not survive critical or long-sighted examination, his unwillingness to stand united with the President and our country at such a critical moment reflects his unwillingness to be a representative of America rather than a representative of an ideology. A senior senator from the President’s own party should never act this way on the very day that a signature economic policy of the President takes effect.

The Chairman Who Will Not Lead

All of this matters more, not less, because of what John Cornyn does in the Senate today. He is not merely a member of the Senate Finance Committee. In the 119th Congress, Senator Cornyn serves as the Chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness — the single Senate subcommittee with primary jurisdiction over American trade policy. He is also one of five Republican senators designated as a Congressional Trade Advisor on Trade Policy and Negotiations.

The trade gavel is in his hand. And he has used it to call for zero tariffs.

This is no small matter. On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. The IEEPA tariffs — the reciprocal architecture announced on Liberation Day, the fentanyl tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China — terminated four days later. The legal foundation of the most ambitious restructuring of American trade policy since the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 was knocked out from under it.

What was the response from the chairman of the Senate’s trade subcommittee? Not a bill granting the President clear statutory tariff authority. Not legislation cementing the reciprocal structure into law. Not a meaningful response to the currency manipulation, transshipment, and forced technology transfer that the President’s tariffs were designed to combat. Instead: hearings about Australian non-tariff barriers to Texas beef exports, where the very first move by Cornyn at USTR Greer’s April 2025 testimony was to pivot the conversation from American producer protection to foreign market access for American exporters. The first frame leads to “zero tariffs.” The second frame leads to the American System. Cornyn knows the difference. He chose the first frame on purpose.

Henry Clay understood the difference. Henry Carey understood the difference. E. Peshine Smith, whose Manual of Political Economy laid out the doctrine that powered post-Civil War American industrialization, understood the difference. The protective tariff was never primarily about prying open foreign markets for American exports. The protective tariff was about building the integrated domestic economy that made American workers the most productive on earth. Cornyn’s framework — reciprocity as a path to zero — inverts this entirely. It treats the American market as a bargaining chip to be traded away rather than as a strategic asset to be defended.

The Senate Finance Committee was where the protective tariffs of 1861, 1890, and 1922 were built. It is where they are being slowly suffocated today, with John Cornyn as one of the senior morticians.

The Choice

Ken Paxton has not written a treatise on the American System. He is not, as far as anyone has documented, a student of Henry Carey or Friedrich List. But he is a man who understands what time it is. He understands that the President’s trade agenda is the most important domestic policy initiative in two generations, and he is running to defend it without reservation, without “reciprocity-toward-zero” caveats, and without one foot already out the door waiting for the political climate to cool.

That matters. The next six years will determine whether the protective turn becomes the new American consensus or a brief Trump-era interlude before the Cornyns of the world reassert control. Texas Republicans have the chance today to send a senator who will fight for the agenda, not slow-walk it from the chairmanship of the very subcommittee where the agenda will live or die.

The Republican Party of Henry Clay was built on protection. The Republican Party of John Cornyn has spent forty years apologizing for it. The choice on the ballot today is, in a small way, the choice between those two parties.

Get to zero, John Cornyn said. The voters should answer in kind.

THE BOTTOM LINE

• The Commerce Department’s announced a billion-dollar award to build the nation’s first dedicated quantum chip foundry, leading the way into a new era of American innovation. Quantum is set to be one of the most important industries of the future with significant implications for national security and commercial industrial activity.

• The White House Signs Technology and Critical-Minerals Understanding With Sweden, setting the stage for U.S lead cooperation across important infant industries, in particular by lowering costs to raw and semi-processed materials for U.S industry.

• On Capitol Hill, members look for transparency in Section 232 investigations and means to securing the semiconductor supply chain. The trade-remedy machinery kept working through the weekend as well, with fresh antidumping and countervailing determinations on chromium and palladium that hold pricing discipline on subsidized foreign metal.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio continues to build mineral diplomacy that will drive down costs for industry. While the Department of Interior increasingly is working toward opening up American mining and processing, these developments will take years to be ready. In the meanwhile, Secretary of State Rubio is creating agreements that will lead to lower input costs for U.S industry, particularly innovative frontline infant industries.

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TODAY’S STORIES

Commerce Backs America’s First Quantum Foundry With Proposed $1 Billion CHIPS Award

IBM and the Department of Commerce announced a letter of intent on May 21 to build the country’s first purpose-built quantum chip foundry, a new venture called Anderon, supported by a proposed $1 billion CHIPS award alongside a matching billion-dollar commitment from IBM. The stated goal is to manufacture the majority of the world’s quantum wafers on American soil and to offer fabrication to outside quantum vendors. Deploying CHIPS funds to seat an entirely new category of advanced manufacturing here, rather than letting it take root abroad, is the American System applied to a frontier industry: build the productive base first, and the supply chain and skilled workforce follow.

Source: IBM Newsroom; the Commerce Department co-announced the award.

White House Signs Technology and Critical-Minerals Understanding With Sweden

The White House on May 22 announced a Technology Prosperity Deal with Sweden, a declaration of intent to cooperate across artificial intelligence, quantum computing, civil nuclear power, defense systems, and critical-minerals technology spanning exploration, extraction, processing, and recovery. The arrangement carries no binding financial commitment, but it signals where the administration intends to align allied capacity. For domestic industry, the value lies in widening access to mineral-processing expertise and advanced-materials research among partners who operate under comparable standards, which reduces dependence on a single dominant supplier.

Source: White House.

Bipartisan Senate Bill Would Require Commerce to Publish Section 232 Findings

Sens. Gary Peters and Susan Collins introduced the Section 232 Public Transparency Act, which would require the Commerce Department to publish summaries of its national-security investigations into imports under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Section 232 is the authority behind the steel, aluminum, and more recent sectoral tariffs, and its reports are not always released on a predictable timeline. Clearer public reporting would strengthen the tool rather than constrain it, giving domestic producers and the trade bar firmer ground to understand the basis for protection and to plan around it.

Source: Inside Trade.

Critical Minerals Lead the Agenda as Rubio Heads to the Quad

Secretary of State Marco Rubio travels to India for a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting beginning May 26, where the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi says critical-minerals supply chains will be a priority topic. The Quad format gives Washington a venue to coordinate mineral sourcing and processing with Australia, Japan, and India outside any single bilateral track. Diversifying the supply of the minerals that feed magnets, batteries, and defense systems is a precondition for the domestic manufacturing the administration is working to expand.

Source: Inside Trade.

CPA: Europe Moves to Reclaim Antibiotic Production From Asian Suppliers

The Coalition for a Prosperous America reports that the European Union is advancing measures to protect domestic antibiotic manufacturing from Asian dominance, a posture that brings Brussels closer to the supply-chain thinking already guiding U.S. policy. Essential medicines are a textbook case for the home-market argument: a nation that cannot produce its own basic antibiotics has surrendered a piece of its sovereignty to whoever controls the active ingredients. That a major trading bloc is reaching the same conclusion lends weight to the case for reshoring strategic production.

Source: Coalition for a Prosperous America (allied org).

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FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — AD Preliminary Determination: Commerce — chromium trioxide from Türkiye and India is preliminarily found to be selling below fair value, with provisional duties to follow. Chromium trioxide is an input for plating and aerospace finishing, and an affirmative preliminary finding restores pricing discipline for the domestic petitioners. Türkiye | India

• Notice — Final CVD Determination: Commerce — countervailable subsidies confirmed on unwrought palladium from Russia. Palladium is a strategic catalyst and electronics metal, and a final affirmative finding closes a subsidized channel into the U.S. market. Read notice

• Notice — AD Administrative Review (Preliminary): Commerce — LG Chem preliminarily found not to have sold superabsorbent polymers from Korea below normal value for 2023-24. A reminder that review can narrow an order where dumping is not shown, which is the system functioning as designed. Read notice

• Notice — AD Administrative Review (Final): Commerce — Poland’s sole exporter of preserved mushrooms determined to have sold below normal value, sustaining duties for domestic growers. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

Sunset-review week: four ITC five-year reviews covering steel and chemical imports all close June 1, the last window for domestic producers to argue the existing duties still belong in place.

• Jun 01 (closes in 7 days) — ITC: Five-year sunset reviews on steel nails, steel grating, welded line pipe, and carbazole violet pigment 23. A sunset review decides whether existing antidumping and countervailing orders continue for another five years or lapse; the comment window is where domestic producers and trade associations submit the injury evidence that keeps the orders alive, and silence favors revocation. Steel nails | Steel grating | Welded line pipe | Carbazole violet pigment 23

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

Both trade committees are in recess for the Memorial Day district work period; no Ways and Means or Senate Finance hearings or markups are noticed for the coming week.

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 2715 — Destruction of Hazardous Imports Act: Would direct CBP to destroy hazardous and noncompliant imported goods rather than permit re-export or re-entry, strengthening the border against substandard foreign product that undercuts compliant domestic manufacturers. Ordered to be reported by Ways and Means, 43-0, on May 21. View bill

• S 1473 — Stop Stealing our Chips Act: Targets the diversion and smuggling of advanced semiconductors to adversary end-users, protecting the technology lead that CHIPS investment is meant to build. Held at the desk in the Senate on May 21, a late procedural stage. View bill

• HR 8959 — Semiconductor Superiority Act: Aims to reinforce domestic semiconductor competitiveness; referred to Ways and Means on May 21, where its trade and tariff provisions will be shaped. View bill

• S 4611 — Job Corps and the Defense Industrial Base: Would align Job Corps training with defense-industrial-base needs, connecting workforce development to the manufacturing capacity the country is working to rebuild. Referred to the HELP Committee on May 20. View bill

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention reached a quorum and formally convened in Philadelphia, the gathering that produced Article I’s grant to Congress of the power to lay duties and imposts, the constitutional foundation on which every American protective tariff since has rested.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

• Week by week, we see how tariffs are driving industry back to the United States. Johnson & Johnson’s $1 billion commitment to a cell therapy manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania, only six days after Commerce opened its pharmaceutical onshoring track for reduced Section 232 duties

• The Senate received a defense-minerals partnership bill and the House advanced a hazardous-imports enforcement measure. Demonstrating how congressional energy continues to flow toward industrial-base legislation.
  

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TODAY’S STORIES

Johnson & Johnson Commits $1 Billion to New Pennsylvania Cell Therapy Plant

Johnson & Johnson and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania announced on Friday a new cell therapy manufacturing facility in Montgomery County, a more than $1 billion investment expected to create over 500 jobs. The announcement is the first major reshored pharmaceutical capital commitment to land in the public square since Commerce opened its May 13 pharmaceutical onshoring track for reduced Section 232 duties; the policy framework and the investment timetable are now moving in step, which is the result the framework was designed to produce.

Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development

House Subcommittee Sends Hazardous Imports Bill to Full Committee

HR 2715, the Destruction of Hazardous Imports Act, was forwarded by subcommittee to full committee by voice vote on May 13. The legislation, focused on the disposition of unsafe imported goods seized at the border, is a discrete piece of import-enforcement infrastructure; it strengthens the operational toolkit at the port of entry, which is where tariff policy becomes practical effect.

Congress.gov

Senate Receives Defense Industrial Base Minerals Partnership Bill

S 4521, the Army Organic Industrial Base Mineral Partnerships Act of 2026, was introduced on May 13 and referred to Senate Armed Services. The measure links the Army’s organic industrial base, its depots, arsenals, and ammunition plants, to domestic mineral producers; it treats the defense supply chain as a domestic industrial proposition, which is consistent with the broader pattern of using sectoral policy to anchor critical capacity inside U.S. borders.

Congress.gov

Mississippi State Breaks Ground on Poultry Feed Mill

Mississippi State University broke ground this week on a new poultry feed mill, a piece of agricultural processing infrastructure that supports one of the state’s largest production sectors. Domestic processing capacity in feed and food is the kind of investment that does not make national headlines, but it is part of the input-side foundation that keeps American agricultural production competitive without reliance on imported substitutes.

The Poultry Site

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• May 20 — House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax: “Your Paycheck, Returned: How the Working Families Tax Cuts Delivered for Americans.” Not a trade hearing on its face, but tax treatment of wages and household income is part of the same domestic-economy frame in which tariff policy operates.

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 2715 — Destruction of Hazardous Imports Act: Strengthens enforcement authority over unsafe goods at the port of entry. Advanced by voice vote out of subcommittee on May 13, now headed to full committee (covered as a lead story above). View bill

• S 4521 — Army Organic Industrial Base Mineral Partnerships Act of 2026: Authorizes Army industrial-base facilities to partner directly with domestic mineral producers; consistent with the defense-industrial reading of the American System (covered as a lead story above). Referred to Senate Armed Services on May 13. View bill

• S 4520 — LNG Export Security Act: Establishes a security framework around U.S. liquefied natural gas exports. Energy export policy intersects with both industrial competitiveness at home (gas as feedstock and power input) and strategic posture abroad; the framework Congress sets here will shape both. Referred to Senate Energy and Natural Resources on May 13. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

• No new Ways and Means trade statements landed in the last 72 hours.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On this day in 1828, President John Quincy Adams signed the Tariff of 1828 into law, levying the highest protective duties in American history to that point. Northern manufacturers welcomed the protection; Southern critics named it the “Tariff of Abominations,” and the politics of Henry Clay’s American System became the defining economic question of the next two decades.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

• President Trump approached the China summit from a position of strength, leading with a “Peace Through Strength” approach that did not abandon a strong protectionist stance. This lead to very few concessions and several breakthroughs, with the critical minerals truce protected as the United States continues to build domestic capacity across strategic industries.

• The White House is framing the outcomes as historic wins for American workers and farmers.

• The structure of the Board of Trade mechanism, will be the thing to watch as negotiations continue and is now headed for public comments.

• On the domestic enforcement front, a continuation of non-oriented electrical steel orders across six countries and a preliminary circumvention finding against a Chinese engine manufacturer, both of which protect producers operating in sectors central to the reindustrialization agenda.

• The USMCA review now sits as the most consequential near-term trade policy battleground, with the Coalition for a Prosperous America warning that origin-washing schemes could hollow out any North American content gains the administration secures.

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TODAY’S STORIES

White House: Trump-Xi Summit Produces Boards of Trade, Beef Access, and Critical Minerals Framework

The White House released a detailed fact sheet on the outcomes of President Trump’s state visit to China, the first by a U.S. president since 2017, describing consensus on establishing bilateral Boards of Trade to manage non-sensitive goods trade and expanded Chinese purchases of American agricultural products, including formal registration of more than 500 U.S. beef export facilities. USTR Greer confirmed the Board of Trade proposal will be published for U.S. public comment before finalization, a step that gives domestic industry a formal opportunity to shape its structure and scope. Whether the Board of Trade framework includes structural protection for sensitive American industries or functions primarily as a market-opening channel is the question domestic producers and trade associations should be tracking closely.

White House

Tariff Times Analysis: "Tariffs and Peace Through Strength"

The Tariff Times addresses confusion produced last week by President Trumps visit to China. Many out there supporting tariffs continue to misunderstand them. Since President Washington signed the first tariff bill on July 4, 1789, the tariff has served one explicit purpose: the defense of American labor and industry. That defensive posture is the source of credible strength, and credible strength is what deters predation and produces peace. The same logic that explains the President's enduring partnerships with Japan under Abe and now Takaichi explains his ability to secure the summit deliverables in Beijing while keeping the protective architecture for American producers fully intact.

The Tariff Times

India Renegotiates Interim Trade Agreement After SCOTUS Tariff Ruling

Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal confirmed Friday that the interim U.S.-India trade framework agreed earlier this year is being revised due to “changed circumstances” following the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on tariff authority. The original agreement included provisions allowing adjustment when underlying conditions shifted, and Goyal indicated the two sides are continuing negotiations under that clause. The development illustrates that the Court’s ruling on executive tariff authority has altered the operating environment for every bilateral arrangement the administration currently has in progress, extending the ruling’s consequences well beyond the domestic litigation track.

Inside Trade

CPA: USMCA Review Must Close the Paper Origins Loophole

The Coalition for a Prosperous America has published analysis on the stakes of the 2026 USMCA review, arguing that the agreement’s rules of origin remain vulnerable to “paper origins” schemes through which goods manufactured primarily outside North America acquire preferential treatment via minimal processing. CPA frames this as the central risk in the upcoming review: without tighter content requirements, transshipment and origin-washing will undermine whatever supply chain gains the administration secures through tariff policy elsewhere. The administration’s stated posture, including USTR Goettman’s proposal for unified North American steel tariff borders, reflects alignment with this position, and the review will test whether that alignment produces enforceable text.

Coalition for a Prosperous America

Toyota Files Plans for $2 Billion Assembly Plant in Texas

Toyota has filed with Texas authorities to construct a new $2 billion vehicle assembly facility, a significant reindustrialization signal from a major automaker responding to the structural incentives the tariff environment has established for domestic production. The filing follows a pattern of foreign automakers committing capital to American manufacturing capacity; Stellantis, Hyundai, and others have announced comparable investments under the administration’s trade posture. Production details including vehicle segments, employment projections, and construction timeline have not been fully disclosed.

MSN

Greer: China’s Rare Earth Licensing Is Adequate; Trade Truce Could Be Extended

Speaking from Beijing at the close of the summit, USTR Greer said China has been issuing rare earth export licenses to American manufacturers at a satisfactory pace and signaled that the deal reached last fall, covering continued U.S. access to those materials, could be extended. Rare earth elements are critical inputs for American defense production, advanced electronics, and electric motor manufacturing; sustained access reduces near-term supply disruption risk for domestic producers who have not yet developed sufficient domestic or allied sourcing alternatives. The assessment provides operational confidence for the sectors most exposed to critical mineral supply chain vulnerability.

Inside Trade

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — Commerce / ITC: Non-oriented electrical steel (NOES) from Sweden, Germany, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan — Commerce and the ITC jointly determined that revoking the existing AD and CVD orders would likely lead to continued dumping, subsidized competition, and material injury to the domestic industry, sustaining the full set of orders. NOES is a critical input for electric motors, power transformers, and grid infrastructure; maintaining these orders protects producers at the center of domestic energy and industrial capacity. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce: Tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane (Tris) from China — Commerce initiated both antidumping and countervailing duty investigations simultaneously, a dual-track action signaling concern about both below-fair-value pricing and Chinese state subsidies for this industrial chemical used in pharmaceutical manufacturing and industrial buffering. AD investigation | CVD investigation

• Notice — Commerce: Certain vertical shaft engines (99-225cc) from China — Commerce makes a preliminary affirmative circumvention determination against Chongqing Zongshen, finding that two newly designed engine models were engineered to evade existing AD and CVD orders, effectively closing a product-redesign loophole that would otherwise have allowed below-fair-value goods into the American market without remedial duties. Read notice

• Notice — USTR (May 15): Quartz surface products (QSP) safeguard remedy — following the USITC’s April determination of serious injury to domestic QSP producers from import surges, USTR has opened a public comment and hearing process to gather recommendations on the appropriate remedy, which may include tariffs, quotas, or trade adjustment assistance. Domestic producers and trade associations have a defined window to put their preferred remedy structure on the record. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce: Corrosion-resistant steel products (CORE) from Taiwan — final antidumping administrative review results confirm sales below normal value during the 2023-2024 period, maintaining the order’s protective effect for domestic flat-rolled steel producers. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

The most urgent deadline is Wednesday: USTR’s Section 301 structural overcapacity probe closes to post-hearing comments in two days, while the new QSP safeguard docket opens a longer runway for domestic producers to shape the remedy.

• May 20 (closes in 2 days) — USTR: Section 301 structural overcapacity investigation — post-hearing written comments due Wednesday, extended from the original May 15 deadline. This probe examines structural excess capacity in foreign industrial sectors and the domestic harm it produces; comments at this stage allow producers and trade associations to supplement the hearing record before USTR draws conclusions. Read Inside Trade report on extension

• TBD, recently opened — USTR: Quartz surface products (QSP) safeguard proceeding — USTR will hold a public hearing and accept written comments recommending specific remedy structures following the USITC injury determination; domestic producers should file their preferred remedy, whether tariff, quota, or adjustment assistance, before the window closes. Read notice

• Jul 14 (new, closes in 57 days) — Commerce: Steel Import License program renewal — Commerce seeks public comment on continuing the steel import licensing system that generates the product- and origin-level import volume data used by domestic producers, trade associations, and Congress to monitor import surges. Read notice

• Jul 14 (new, closes in 57 days) — Commerce: Aluminum Import Monitoring and Analysis System (AIMS) renewal — parallel to the steel licensing docket, Commerce seeks comment on continuing AIMS, which provides the import volume tracking data for aluminum products by category and country. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• May 20 — Ways and Means Tax Subcommittee: “Your Paycheck, Returned: How the Working Families Tax Cuts Delivered for Americans” — a tax subcommittee hearing on the domestic income-side provisions of the reconciliation package rather than trade directly, but the fiscal architecture being assembled in Ways and Means this week will shape the revenue baseline against which tariff receipts are measured and trade-linked domestic investments are funded.

BILLS TO WATCH

No trade, tariff, forced labor, supply chain, or reindustrialization bills recorded new congressional activity in the last seven days. The legislative trade calendar is quiet as attention remains on the reconciliation process and the diplomatic framework following the Trump-Xi summit.

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

No Ways and Means trade-related statements in the last 72 hours.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 18, 1933, President Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, establishing a federally owned corporation to develop the Tennessee River basin through hydroelectric power generation, flood control, and regional industrial investment. The TVA helped to electrify the south, setting the foundation for industrial development and economic development.

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Note: Last week I did not publish as usual. Unfortunately, I was injured and could hardly type. I apologize for this. Things should be returning to normal. Great progress was made during this time on other fronts which will come to light soon. Thank you so much for your support.

The vast majority of people, even those who claim to champion the tariff, continue to misunderstand not just our President, but the tariff. Many are bewildered at President Trump for his recent trip to China. How can Trump be so adamant about using tariffs, but then seem so friendly to Xi Jinping? After 10 years of Trump being at the forefront of our politics, it’s shocking that so many still have yet to fully understand what “peace through strength” really means, and how tariffs fit into the President’s agenda.

Tariffs are NOT a weapon. Tariffs are NOT a way to seek vengeance. Protectionists do not advocate for tariffs because of their offensive capabilities. Since President Washington signed the first tariff bill, literally on July 4th, 1789, the tariff has been wielded for an explicit, definitive purpose: the defense of American labor and industry. Protectionists protect. They occupy an inherently defensive position.

But a defensive posture is not a passive one. The credible strength to defend American industry is precisely what deters predation against it — and deterrence, not appeasement, is what produces peace. The reason the President has taken such a strong approach to tariffing Chinese goods is not because he seeks to destroy the Chinese, but precisely because he wishes to protect American labor and industry. Secretary Rubio articulates this strategy clearly—

“Their rise cannot come at our expense. Their rise cannot come at our fall... When [China’s] plan is in conflict with the national interest of the United States, we need to do what’s right for the United States.”

China has belligerently attacked the United States in nearly all fashions but direct kinetic force. From constant cyberattacks, systemic theft of intellectual property, a total mishandling of Covid, to a deliberate Communist industrial policy plan that aims at making not just the United States, but the world, dependent on a party seeking global hegemony; the Chinese have done incalculable damage to the American people and to western civilization as a whole. And yet President Donald J. Trump did not ride down the golden escalator in 2015 to crush China. Nor did he survive multiple assassination attempts to end the Chinese Communist Party. President Trump ran for office because he saw what was happening to our beautiful country, and wanted to protect and defend the American people.

Look at the President’s phenomenal relationship with Japan, including the late Shinzo Abe, and now Sanae Takaichi. Do you realize that the first time President Trump advocated publicly for tariffs was over 40 years ago, when he chastised Japan and called for the defense of American industry against Japanese dumping? Do you think President Trump did this because he wanted to crush the Japanese? Do you think President Trump wanted to use tariffs to destroy them? No, President Trump advocated for tariffs then, as he does now, not for the destruction of foreign competitors, but for the protection of the American people.

Unlike the Communist Party, the industrial goals of Protectionists are not to subjugate the world to a totalitarian vision. Protectionists have no ill will toward the people of China nor the rest of the world. Our goal is simple: the protection of American workers and industry, the development of the home market, and a higher quality of life for all our people.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

President Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday is set to be perhaps the most important event of the administration thus far. The stupidity of free trade led us to this disastrous situation where the Chinese have significant leverage on critical minerals, challenging efforts to decouple. Rumors are circulating about what the meeting will entail, and what options the President is considering. A U.S.-China Board of Trade might work as a management tool as the United States works to build its own capacities independent of China, although this is not without its own risks. There have been talks about a potential $1 trillion investment from China into the United States, such as China potentially building BYD factories within the United States. There are ways to minimize damage from this kind of agreement, but there is a substantial risk with such an agreement both to domestic companies that would thus be competing with these new investments, as well as national security threats related to exposure to Chinese internal dependence and industrial espionage. While many are rushing to make predictions about what will be agreed on and what the results of these agreements will be, in reality, it is far too early to predict. The Tariff Times will be monitoring this situation very closely as it develops.

While the President is abroad, the Justice Department is asking both the Court of International Trade and the Federal Circuit to stay last week's CIT ruling against Section 122, defending the legal architecture that gives the executive branch ready leverage to apply pressure during precisely these kinds of talks. A bipartisan group of senators is also asking the President to hold the line on shipbuilding remedies in Beijing, a useful reminder that the protectionist coalition in Congress now stretches across both parties when American industrial capacity is in view. An extraordinary piece of good news: Auto parts maker Valeo broke ground on a major new manufacturing facility in McAllen, Texas, investing $225 million with production set to begin in late 2027.

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TODAY’S STORIES

Trump Arrives in Beijing for Xi Talks With Board of Trade and Critical Minerals on the Agenda

President Trump will arrive in China this week for a state visit that the White House says will advance work on the U.S.-China Board of Trade, a parallel Board of Investment, and additional sectoral agreements spanning aerospace, agriculture, and energy. The October 2025 Busan truce that committed China to license critical minerals exports expires later this year, and senior U.S. officials told reporters Sunday that both governments want it extended, though no announcement has been timed to the trip. The American negotiating posture is built on the tariff architecture the administration has assembled over the last year, and Beijing’s interest in stable relations is a function of that architecture working as designed.

Inside Trade

Justice Department Asks Courts to Stay CIT Ruling Against Section 122 Tariffs

The administration filed motions Monday at both the Court of International Trade and the Federal Circuit asking for stays of the CIT decision that ruled the President’s Section 122 tariffs unlawful, arguing that allowing the ruling to take effect would cause irreparable harm to ongoing trade negotiations and reopen the question of refunds on earlier emergency duties. The legal stakes extend well beyond Section 122 itself, since the doctrine the trial court applied would constrain a range of statutory tariff authorities the administration relies on. A successful stay would preserve the President’s full leverage during the Beijing trip and the EU implementation work continuing into July.

Inside Trade

Bipartisan Senate Letter Urges Trump to Hold the Line on Shipbuilding in Xi Talks

Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Todd Young (R-IN), and Tim Scott (R-SC) sent the President a joint letter Monday urging him to move forward with trade remedies targeting Chinese shipbuilding practices and to avoid concessions on that front during this week’s meetings with President Xi. The letter reflects how broad the protectionist consensus on Chinese industrial policy has become, with two Democrats and two Republicans aligning on the same recommendation in the same document. Shipbuilding sits at the intersection of industrial base, national security, and merchant marine readiness, and Congressional support for remedy action gives the administration room to take it.

May 11 Senate letter to the President

Valeo to Build $225 Million U.S. Plant, Adding 500 Jobs

French auto-parts supplier Valeo announced a new $225 million U.S. manufacturing facility expected to create 500 American jobs, a reshoring move that follows the auto-sector tariff schedule the administration finalized earlier this year. The facility adds to a growing list of foreign producers concluding that serving the U.S. market from inside the U.S. tariff wall is the most economical option available to them. This is the mechanism Henry Clay described two centuries ago at work in real time: a protected home market drawing capital and production into the country.

Yahoo Finance

Mining and Industry Coalition Pushes to Curb EPA’s Clean Water Act Veto Power

A new “Fix the EPA Veto Coalition” launched May 7 is urging President Trump to direct EPA to open a rulemaking that would limit the agency’s use of Clean Water Act section 404(c) authority to retroactively veto dredge-and-fill permits for mining, energy, and infrastructure projects. The coalition’s concern is that a future administration could weaponize the 404(c) tool to unwind projects approved by this one, an institutional vulnerability that affects the durability of the domestic critical-minerals build-out the administration is otherwise advancing. Permitting reform of this kind is foundational to converting tariff-driven demand signals into domestic capacity that breaks ground and stays built.

Inside Trade

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — AD preliminary results: Commerce — Steel concrete reinforcing bar from Mexico sold at less than normal value during the November 2023 to October 2024 period of review, with Deacero Group identified as the principal respondent. Mexico’s rebar exports are a recurring sore point in the North American steel market, and a preliminary affirmative finding on the largest producer maintains the discipline the order was designed to provide. Read notice

• Notice — AD/CVD institution: ITC — Preliminary phase antidumping and countervailing duty investigations opened on N-cyclohexylbenzothiazole-2-sulfenamide (a rubber-vulcanization accelerator) from China. Another specialty chemicals case against Chinese state-subsidized capacity, in a segment where the domestic producer base is thin and worth defending. Read notice

• Notice — AD preliminary results: Commerce — Certain aluminum foil from Türkiye sold at less than normal value during the 2023-2024 period of review. The aluminum foil order is part of the broader downstream-aluminum tariff complex protecting U.S. converters and rolling mills. Read notice

• Notice — Section 337 final determination: ITC — Limited exclusion order and cease-and-desist orders issued against imported semiconductor devices found to violate Section 337. Section 337 remains the workhorse statute for keeping IP-infringing imports out of the U.S. market, and chip-sector findings sharpen the broader semiconductor enforcement regime. Read notice

• Notice — Information collection: Commerce — Parts Tariff Offset Program for Motor Vehicles and Motor Vehicle Parts submitted to OMB for review, the administrative plumbing for the auto-sector offset mechanism. Worth watching for any change to how the offset is calculated or claimed. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

AGOA modernization is the only deadline this week; softwood lumber and the steel-nails sunset reviews trail two and three weeks behind.

• May 15 (closes in 3 days) — USTR: Comments on the modernization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, authorized through year-end 2026 and now up for reauthorization debate. Trade associations with views on duty-free preference design, sourcing rules, or eligibility criteria should file before AGOA’s reauthorization window opens on the Hill. Read notice

• May 26 (closes in 14 days) — Commerce: Comments on subsidies, including stumpage subsidies, provided by foreign exporters of softwood lumber during the second half of 2025, under the Softwood Lumber Act. U.S. lumber producers and forest-products associations use this annual filing to document the subsidy patterns that anchor the existing trade remedy regime. Read notice

• Jun 01 (closes in 20 days) — ITC: Five-year sunset reviews on steel nails from Malaysia, Oman, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Domestic steel-nail producers should file to maintain the antidumping orders that have kept the industry viable; the order lapses if no party defends it. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• May 13 — House Foreign Affairs Committee: Markup of the DOMINANCE Act (Developing Overseas Mineral Investments and New Allied Networks for Critical Energies). The bill would direct the State Department to formulate a full critical-minerals strategy including deals with developing producers, providing diplomatic muscle to back up the administration’s domestic build-out. Committee schedule

• May 19 — House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Tax: Hearing on the working-families tax provisions, which sits adjacent to the broader manufacturing-incentive tax architecture the committee will need to revisit alongside any tariff-revenue deployment plan. Committee page

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8730: Bill to prohibit the importation, manufacture, sale, or interstate commerce in connected vehicles and related software and hardware associated with foreign adversaries. Directly advances the connected-vehicle restrictions Commerce has been building out by rulemaking, and creates a statutory floor under that policy regardless of which party controls the executive branch. Referred to House Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Foreign Affairs on May 11. View bill

• S 4327: Securing America’s Drug Supply from Communist China Act. Targets the pharmaceutical supply-chain dependence that CPA flagged on antibiotics earlier this month; a sector where Chinese concentration is among the most acute in the U.S. industrial base. Referred to Senate HELP April 16. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

• W&M Republicans: Five Key Moments from last week’s Greer hearing recap, emphasizing tariff-leveraged market access gains for American producers and farmers under the President’s trade agenda. The committee is signaling sustained majority support for the administration’s tariff posture as the Beijing talks open. Read statement

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 12, 1949, the Soviet Union lifted the Berlin Blockade after eleven months of the Berlin Airlift, an industrial logistics feat in which American factories, aircraft, and aircrews flew 2.3 million tons of cargo into a city Stalin had tried to starve, demonstrating that an industrial democracy can outproduce an authoritarian rival when it chooses to do so.

Tariff Times Daily is published by the American Protective Tariff League.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

With President Trump set to visit Beijing in a high stakes meeting with Xi Jinping later this week, all Protectionist are looking to what will happen with USTR ambassador Greers “Board of Trade” idea. Particularly since President Trump is well aware that China abandoned its commitments in the Phase One deal from the first admin, and is ongoing investigations are revealing the extent of Chinese egregious trade violations, it seems likely the President will embrace a stern stance. If we have learned anything so far in this admin, it is to trust Trump. On every metric, the President has won even with his back up against the wall. While a patient tone is necessary, as the United States must ramp up its own critical mineral production before completely severing the cord between ourselves and China, it is critical that too many concessions to China are not given, particularly in the field of national security and AI . While the ITC has ruled against President Trumps universe 10% tariffs, the ruling is not yet actionable, and the April jobs report is showing 12,600 factory construction jobs added in a single month, signaling that the Presidents agenda is delivering.

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TODAY’S STORIES

White House Previews “Board of Trade” Ahead of Trump-Xi Meeting

In a May 10 background call with reporters, the White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary outlined a “forward-leaning” announcement on a U.S.-China “Board of Trade” mechanism that could cover tens of billions of dollars in traded goods, with the deliverable expected when President Trump meets President Xi Jinping in China this week. This could be a mechanism by which the United States can manage a taper off imports from China, while building its own domestic capabilities. But it remains to be seen whether the Chinese would agree to this, and whether or not it is a sincere gesture from the President, or a leverage tool. The Presidents with Xi will allegedly cover a broad swath of important topics, including AI, Taiwan, and Iran. It’s unclear how those issues will effect the conversation on trade and any potential “board of trade” arrangement.

Source: Inside Trade

April Jobs Report: 12,600 Factory Construction Jobs Added in a Single Month

The White House said the April employment report showed 12,600 factory construction jobs added in the month, attributing the gain to “trillions in investments continue pouring into American manufacturing.” Factory construction is the leading indicator of industrial capacity in formation, the buildings and groundbreakings that will host the next decade of U.S. production. The April number continues the pattern set since the second-term tariff posture took effect. While part of these jobs are related to the AI buildout, the investment taking place in this field is fostering downstream growth in different sectors.

Source: White House

House Ways and Means Hears Testimony on Special Tax Treatment for Domestic Copper, Scrap Export Restrictions

Witnesses before the House Ways and Means Committee recommended that domestic copper production receive special tax treatment and that scrap copper exports be considered for restriction, two policy levers aimed at keeping the metal that powers grid, semiconductor, and defense production inside U.S. industrial supply chains. The Coalition for a Prosperous America, which covered the hearing, framed it as a structural moment for upstream metals policy.

Source: Coalition for a Prosperous America (allied)

BLM Returns 1.4 Million Acres to Alaska, Clearing Path to Ambler Mining District

The Bureau of Land Management completed a transfer of 1.4 million acres of federal land back to Alaska along the Dalton Utility Corridor, with the Interior Department noting that the corridor encompasses “some of Alaska’s most critical transportation and energy assets” and that the transfer is expected to advance critical mineral production in the Ambler Mining District. American mineral sovereignty in the critical-minerals tier requires American land available for production; this transfer is the precondition.

Source: Inside Trade

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — ITC: Final affirmative determination of a Section 337 violation involving photodynamic therapy systems and oil vaporizing devices, with a limited exclusion order and cease-and-desist orders issued against the named respondents. Trade-remedy enforcement is being applied as intended where infringing imports are proven. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce: Final results of the antidumping administrative review on cut-to-length carbon-quality steel plate from the Republic of Korea, with Commerce finding sales at less than normal value during the February 2024 to January 2025 period. Above-zero margins continue on Korean steel plate, useful precedent for domestic producers tracking Korean pricing. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce: Preliminary results of the countervailing duty administrative review on wood mouldings and millwork products from China, with Commerce preliminarily finding countervailable subsidies for the 2024 period of review. Another data point on the structural use of state subsidy in Chinese downstream wood products. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

AGOA modernization closes Friday is the marquee deadline; the softwood lumber subsidy comments and the five-country steel-nails sunset reviews stack up behind it.

• May 15 (closes in 4 days) — USTR: Modernization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Congressional reauthorization is coming, and domestic textile, apparel, and downstream producers should weigh in on whether the post-2026 structure preserves or unwinds duty-free access. Read notice

• May 26 (closes in 15 days) — Commerce: Annual softwood-lumber subsidy comment cycle covering July through December 2025. The standing evidence file for the U.S. softwood-lumber subsidy case; U.S. Lumber Coalition members and domestic mills should submit. Read notice

• Jun 1 (closes in 21 days) — ITC: Five-year sunset reviews of the AD orders on steel nails from Malaysia, Oman, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, plus the CVD order on Vietnam. Sunset reviews decide whether the orders remain in force; domestic nail producers must file to preserve protection. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

No House Ways and Means or Senate Finance trade hearings or markups are on the public schedule for the next 14 days.

BILLS TO WATCH

• S 4393 — Build America, Buy America Compliance Act: Tightens compliance with the Build America Buy America domestic-content rules attached to federal infrastructure spending. Direct support for American manufacturers in the federal procurement pipeline. Referred to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. View bill

• HR 8649 — Expanding the Defense Industrial Base Sales Act: Broadens authorized sales channels supporting the U.S. defense industrial base. Helps amortize the cost of strategically important domestic production capacity by widening its customer base. Referred to House Foreign Affairs. View bill

• HR 8656 — Domestic ballistic-fiber body armor for DOJ: Requires the Department of Justice to procure ballistic-resistant body armor made with domestic ballistic fibers. A clean buy-American mandate in a procurement category where foreign content has been the norm. Referred to House Judiciary. View bill

• HR 8681 — Cobalt forced-labor sanctions: Imposes sanctions on foreign persons employing forced or child labor in the cobalt mining sector. Targets the upstream pricing distortion that comes from forced-labor production in the critical-minerals supply chain. Referred to House Foreign Affairs and House Judiciary. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

No fresh House Ways and Means trade statements in the last 72 hours.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 11, 1947, B.F. Goodrich announced the development of the tubeless automobile tire in Akron, Ohio, one of the signature American industrial innovations of the postwar period and a marker of the rubber-and-auto manufacturing concentration the United States led globally at mid-century.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

Today’s slate cuts across every channel of American industrial policy: a Section 201 tariff-rate quota recommendation from the ITC, fresh CPA trade data from the first month of the Iran conflict, the President’s bilateral with Brazil’s Lula in Washington, G7 alignment on critical-minerals price floors, and a four-gigawatt solar module factory entering construction in the United States. The administration is working agency action, multilateral coordination, and bilateral negotiation in parallel.

TODAY’S STORIES

SEG Solar Announces 4-Gigawatt U.S. Solar Module Factory

SEG Solar said today it will build a new 4-gigawatt solar module manufacturing facility in the United States, adding meaningful domestic capacity to a supply chain still heavily reliant on overseas producers. Tariff and trade-remedy pressure on solar imports has been one of the most consistent drivers of new U.S. module capacity over the last cycle, and a 4-gigawatt facility lands at the upper end of single-site announcements in the sector.

Yahoo Finance

ITC Recommends Tariff-Rate Quota on Quartz Surface Products

Two of the three sitting ITC commissioners recommended that the President impose a four-year tariff-rate quota on imports of quartz surface products under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974, having determined imports are harming U.S. producers. Section 201 has historically been the most domestically-oriented of the trade statutes; it is keyed not to a foreign-government violation but to whether U.S. industry is being injured, which makes it a clean expression of the American System logic of protecting domestic capacity for its own sake.

U.S. International Trade Commission

Trump and Brazil’s Lula to Meet in Washington on Tariffs

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is meeting with President Trump in Washington today to discuss tariffs and cooperation on illicit drug and arms trafficking, according to Brazil’s finance minister. Brazil is one of the larger Western Hemisphere economies still without a settled bilateral framework with the administration; the meeting fits the broader pattern of consolidating U.S. trade relationships through direct head-of-state negotiation rather than multilateral process.

Inside Trade

CPA: March Imports Rose, Monthly Trade Deficit Up 4.4% in First Month of Iran War

The Coalition for a Prosperous America’s analysis of March trade data finds imports rising and the monthly goods-and-services deficit climbing 4.4 percent, even as the United States entered the first full month of the Iran conflict. The figures underscore how deeply embedded import dependence remains in the U.S. economy and reinforce the case that tariff policy must be sustained as a structural rebalancing, not a near-term trade-flow shock.

Coalition for a Prosperous America

G7 Trade Ministers Endorse Work on Critical-Minerals Price Floors and Plurilateral Agreements

G7 trade ministers meeting in Paris on May 5-6 issued a communiqué dedicating substantial space to critical minerals, weighing price-gap subsidies, joint procurement efforts, and plurilateral agreements to counter market distortion from non-market producers. The price-floor approach is a recognition that letting the spot market alone govern strategic minerals has produced the dependency the United States is now trying to engineer out, and that allied coordination on the demand side is needed alongside domestic production support.

G7 communiqué

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — AD/CVD Preliminary Results: Commerce — Aluminum foil from Brazil, Türkiye, and Oman all received preliminary findings of dumping or countervailable subsidization in the 2023-24 reviews. The reviews are the routine maintenance of the aluminum-foil order book that has been a steady source of import discipline for domestic rolling capacity. Brazil | Türkiye | Oman

• Notice — Preliminary Affirmative LTFV: Commerce — Freight rail couplers from the Czech Republic and India both received preliminary affirmative determinations of sales at less than fair value. Rail couplers are a small but strategically meaningful category for U.S. rail-equipment producers, and the parallel cases close off two import avenues at once. Czech Republic | India

• Notice — AD/CVD Investigation Institution: ITC — Air compressors from China, Malaysia, and Vietnam are now in preliminary-phase AD and CVD investigations under the Tariff Act of 1930. A three-country case captures the most common import-routing patterns in one proceeding and gives domestic compressor producers a single window to substantiate injury. Read notice

• Notice — LTFV Investigation Initiation: Commerce — Polytetramethylene ether glycol from China, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam was added to the LTFV investigation docket. The chemical is an upstream input for spandex and high-performance polyurethanes, and a four-country case targets the principal current import sources at once. Read notice

• Notice — Section 337 Review: ITC — The Commission will review in part a final initial determination finding a Section 337 violation in the photovoltaic trunk bus cable assemblies investigation, with submissions sought on remedy and bonding. Section 337 remedies, when issued, can include exclusion orders that bar the infringing imports outright. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

A small, high-stakes Docket: AGOA modernization comments close next week, the Section 301 China review docket is now formally open, and softwood lumber subsidy comments fall in between.

• May 15 (closes in 8 days) — USTR: Modernization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Domestic textile, apparel, and agriculture producers and importers concerned about AGOA’s structure ahead of its December 2026 expiration should file now; this is the input window that will shape USTR’s reauthorization recommendations to Congress. Read notice

• May 26 (closes in 19 days) — Commerce: Subsidy programs in countries exporting softwood lumber to the United States, July-December 2025. The Softwood Lumber Act report is the recurring vehicle through which U.S. lumber producers and the Coalition keep stumpage subsidies on the record; comments here feed directly into next-cycle CVD posture against Canadian lumber. Read notice

• Aug 22 (new, closes in 107 days) — USTR: Initiation of the second statutory four-year review of the Section 301 China actions on technology transfer, IP, and innovation. The 2018 actions are the structural backbone of the current China tariff regime; the comment record will shape whether the duties are continued, expanded, or reorganized for the next four-year cycle. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

Hill calendars quiet on trade hearings and markups in the next 14 days from W&M and Senate Finance.

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8169: Export Control Enforcement and Enhancement Act. Strengthens BIS authorities and penalties for export-control violations, including resources for enforcement against diversion and front-company schemes; squarely advances the American System interest in keeping U.S. industrial and technology base outputs from being weaponized abroad. Ordered to be reported in the nature of a substitute by the Yeas and Nays, 44-0. View bill

• SRES 713: Resolution supporting the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency and combating the economic influence of the People’s Republic of China. Symbolic but substantive: ties dollar primacy to industrial-policy seriousness about China and reinforces the political case for sustained tariff and supply-chain action. Referred to Senate Foreign Relations. View bill

• SRES 716: Resolution expressing the sense of the Senate on critical elements of U.S. policy toward the People’s Republic of China. A vehicle for codifying Senate consensus on the China policy stance underwriting Section 301, BIS controls, and outbound-investment review. Referred to Senate Foreign Relations. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

No substantive Ways and Means trade statements in the last 72 hours.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 7, 1789, the First Federal Congress was deep in the House debate that produced the Tariff Act of 1789, the second statute ever enacted by the United States; signed by President Washington that July 4, its preamble declared its object to be “the encouragement and protection of manufactures.”

Apologies for posting this late in the day. It has been an extremely busy day for me. Early morning drafts will be resuming soon. Thank you for reading.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

As the Trump-Xi meeting approaches, the entire world is holding their breath to see what happens. The war in Iran, as well as the looming threat over Taiwan are strong influences over the administrations calculus on how to approach trade negotiations with China. On the one hand, export controls, particularly on high end chips, are working. The United States is driving ahead on AI and Compute while China gets further behind. With this in mind, the Chinese are more desperate to throw their critical mineral processing leverage in trade negotiations, and the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is taking an increasingly hostile position around Taiwan. A normal President would crack under this pressure, and give the Chinese a sweetheart deal to avoid conflict. Not President Trump. The administration moved forward today opening a review of the original Section 301 tariffs with China. Deputy USTR Rick Switzer has stated the admin will take a “patient but strong” approach. Meanwhile, more wins are pouring in, as the United States hit records in good exports in March and Norway is joining the Pax-Silica Coalition to build out a supply chain in critical minerals that is not dependent on Chinese processing.

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TODAY’S STORIES

USTR Opens Statutory Second Four-Year Review of Section 301 China Tariffs

USTR published the Federal Register notice initiating the second four-year review of the Section 301 tariffs imposed on China in 2018, beginning with notification to the domestic industries that benefit from the actions. The review is the legal mechanism through which the existing tariff structure can be expanded, modified, or maintained, and it provides protected industries a formal channel to make the case for continuation and broadening. Comments are open through August 22.

Federal Register — Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

Hassett: Record March Goods Exports and Capital Goods Imports Show Onshoring Working

NEC Director Kevin Hassett, speaking at the Commerce Department on Tuesday, said the March trade report’s record $320.9 billion in monthly goods exports and the rise in capital goods imports demonstrate the administration’s economic program is producing the intended results. Hassett’s framing matters: the headline trade deficit widened, but the composition of that gap is increasingly capital goods that build domestic productive capacity. That is the American System case for measuring trade outcomes by what gets built at home, not by the topline balance.

Inside Trade

White House Releases Most-Favored-Nation Drug Pricing Framework, Reaches Agreements With 17 Manufacturers

The White House released its Most-Favored-Nation drug pricing analysis, reporting voluntary MFN agreements with 17 of the largest global pharmaceutical manufacturers. The policy ties U.S. drug prices to those paid in other developed economies, addressing the long-standing pattern in which American consumers and the federal health programs subsidize pharmaceutical innovation that benefits the world. For the domestic pharmaceutical supply chain, the next question is how MFN pricing pairs with the administration’s parallel push to reshore active pharmaceutical ingredient production.

White House

Norway Joins Pax Silica, Bringing U.S.-Led Coalition to 14 Members

Norwegian Trade and Industry Minister Cecile Myrseth announced that Norway will sign the Pax Silica declaration on Wednesday, becoming the fourteenth member of the U.S.-led coalition focused on artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and adjacent supply chains. The expansion of allied membership gives the administration a broader bench of partners with whom to coordinate critical mineral access and processing capacity outside Chinese-dominated channels. Each new accession adds a node to the alternative supply architecture being built in parallel to the bilateral pressure on Beijing.

Government of Norway

CPA: America’s AI Boom Has a Trade Policy Blind Spot

The Coalition for a Prosperous America argues that the AI infrastructure buildout, including the data centers, chips, and grid investment driving record industrial demand, is occurring without an adequate trade policy framework to ensure the underlying components and inputs are domestically produced. CPA’s point is that the AI race is being treated as a technology question when it is, structurally, a manufacturing and supply chain question. The administration’s emerging Section 232 work on semiconductors and the Pax Silica coalition begin to address this, but CPA’s framing is that the trade policy architecture is still catching up to the industrial reality.

Coalition for a Prosperous America

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — ITC Institution: International Trade Commission instituted preliminary phase AD/CVD investigations on air compressors from China, Malaysia, and Vietnam. A multi-country case on a workhorse industrial input is exactly where a Section 232-style sectoral approach could supplement the trade remedy track. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce Initiation: Commerce initiated less-than-fair-value investigations on polytetramethylene ether glycol from China, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. PTMEG is a foundational chemical input for spandex, polyurethane elastomers, and engineered fibers, and the four-country scope reflects how thoroughly the supply base has been hollowed out. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce Preliminary: Commerce issued an affirmative preliminary LTFV determination on freight rail couplers from India and a parallel determination on couplers from the Czech Republic. The freight rail equipment supply chain is a defense-industrial-base concern, and these cases stand to support the small remaining domestic producer base. India notice | Czech Republic notice

• Notice — Commerce Sunset Review: Commerce found revocation of the AD and CVD orders on wood mouldings and millwork products from China would likely lead to recurrence of dumping and subsidization. The orders will continue, preserving protection for an industry that competes directly against state-supported Chinese capacity. AD review | CVD review

ON THE DOCKET

USTR’s new Section 301 four-year review opens a 108-day comment window that will sit on top of the AGOA modernization filings closing next week.

• May 15 (closes in 9 days) — USTR: AGOA modernization, ahead of the program’s December expiration. Domestic textile, apparel, and agricultural producers should weigh in on rules of origin, eligibility criteria, and which provisions, if any, are compatible with the broader bilateral and reciprocal trade agenda. Read notice

• May 26 (closes in 20 days) — Commerce: Subsidy programs by countries exporting softwood lumber to the United States, covering July through December 2025 under the Softwood Lumber Act. The U.S. lumber industry’s central forum for documenting Canadian and other foreign stumpage subsidies. Read notice

• Aug 22 (new, closes in 108 days) — USTR: Second four-year statutory review of Section 301 China actions from 2018. Domestic industries that benefit from the original tariff structure should file early to make the case for continuation, expansion, or modification of specific tariff lines. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

No public hearings or markups scheduled in House Ways and Means or Senate Finance this week.

BILLS TO WATCH

• S 4327: Securing America’s Drug Supply from Communist China Act. Aimed at the same pharmaceutical supply chain vulnerability CPA flagged on antibiotics last week, the bill creates a framework for moving production out of Chinese sourcing. Referred to Senate HELP. View bill

• S 4393: Build America, Buy America Compliance Act. Tightens the BABA enforcement regime that governs the domestic content rules attached to federal infrastructure spending, closing waivers and reporting gaps that have allowed foreign content into Buy American projects. Referred to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. View bill

• HR 8649: Expanding the Defense Industrial Base Sales Act. Broadens the channels through which allied governments can procure from U.S. defense manufacturers, supporting volume and scale at domestic primes and their supplier base. Referred to House Foreign Affairs. View bill

• HR 8656: DOJ ballistic-resistant body armor must be manufactured using domestic ballistic fibers. A targeted onshoring requirement that addresses a specific defense-industrial vulnerability in the synthetic fiber supply chain. Referred to House Judiciary. View bill

• SRES 713: Senate resolution supporting the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and combating PRC economic influence. Symbolic but substantively useful as a marker of bipartisan Senate posture as the Trump-Xi summit approaches. Referred to Senate Foreign Relations. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

No new House Ways and Means trade statements in the last 72 hours.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 6, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 7034 establishing the Works Progress Administration, which over the next eight years built more than 650,000 miles of roads, 78,000 bridges, and 125,000 public buildings. While FDR’s legacy is controversial, with his Secretary of State Cordell Hull gutting American tariffs, FDR’s build out of public infrastructure and deployment of millions of Americans into important public service work with the WPA and the Civilian Conservation Corps is something worth reflecting on.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

In Geneva, the United States and its G7 partners told the WTO that subsidized Chinese overcapacity has produced a “second China shock,” language that signals broader allied alignment behind the structural critique. The Chinese did not respond well to this. They made a bizarre claim that overcapacity doesn’t exist and is legally impossible, and that the United States and other countries have no right to unilaterally decide on whether or not their trade partners are violating their agreements. In essence, China is telling the United States and others that they have no sovereignty over their trade. Awkwardly, for the purpose of minimizing the sovereignty of nation states, they have adopted the language of multilateral institutions after decades of abusing these institutions for their own ends. On another front, Commerce today initiated antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on tin mill products from China, Taiwan, and Türkiye, the same product category U.S. Steel announced last month it would restart producing at its Gary, Indiana mill. The sequencing is the American System operating as designed: trade remedies underwrite the investment case for reshoring, and reshoring justifies the continued protection. Bilateral diplomacy continues this week as USTR Greer meets European Trade Commissioner Šefčovič in Paris on EU auto tariff implementation.

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TODAY’S STORIES

United States Tells WTO That Industrial Subsidies Have Produced a “Second China Shock”

At an April 30 meeting of the WTO Subsidies and Countervailing Measures Committee, the United States, joined by the European Union, Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom, argued that large-scale Chinese industrial subsidization has triggered a second China shock for global producers. The G7-plus alignment matters: the structural critique of Chinese overcapacity is no longer a U.S.-only position, which strengthens the legitimacy of unilateral remedial action when multilateral consensus proves elusive. Beijing rejected the framing out of hand, stating that “China believes that the United States has no right to unilaterally determine whether its trading partners have ‘overcapacity’ through Section 301 investigations, nor does it have the right to take unilateral restrictive measures.” In other words, China does not believe that the United States nor other Nations have a sovereign right to determine their own trade relations and practices. Very telling, and this kind of rhetoric is likely to further demonstrate to other nations that China is a nation which seeks to violate other nations sovereignty and create dependence on the Chinese Communist Party.

Inside Trade

Commerce Initiates Tin Mill Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Investigations on China, Taiwan, and Türkiye

The Department of Commerce today opened parallel less-than-fair-value and countervailing duty investigations into tin mill products from the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, and Türkiye. The timing aligns with U.S. Steel’s announcement last month that it will restart its Gary, Indiana tin mill, reflecting a coordinated approach of pairing trade remedies with domestic capacity rebuilding. Tin mill products are the steel substrate for food and aerosol cans, a sector where domestic production has eroded for decades, and a restored protective margin is the precondition for the Gary investment to pencil out.

Federal Register, Department of Commerce

Greer and Šefčovič to Meet in Paris on EU Auto Tariff Implementation

USTR Jamieson Greer and European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič will meet Tuesday in Paris on the sidelines of a G7 trade ministerial to discuss implementation of the U.S.-EU tariff accord and the President’s reimposition of 25 percent duties on European autos and auto parts. The administration’s position is that EU compliance has fallen short and the renewed auto duties are a calibrated enforcement response. The Tariff Times covered this story extensively yesterday. Midwest assembly plants stand to benefit from the protective margin against German and French exports, and the Paris meeting will indicate whether Brussels intends to negotiate or absorb. The President of the American Protective Tariff League covered this story extensively yesterday.

Inside Trade

Sen. McCormick Introduces Permitting Reform Bill to Streamline Mine and Infrastructure Reviews

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) introduced the Unlock American Energy and Jobs Act, which would limit environmental and permitting hurdles for new mines, energy projects, and major infrastructure. Permitting timelines are the binding constraint on most of the critical minerals strategy: tariffs and Defense Production Act capital cannot translate into operating mines if the review process runs a decade. Trade-press observers expect the broader permitting debate to remain deadlocked through the midterms, but the bill establishes the Republican baseline for what eventual compromise legislation must include. These reforms are critical to unlocking the “internal improvements” aspect of the American system, a key part of the agenda that Henry Clay developed and President Trump is elaborating on.

Bill text

Sens. Sheehy and Coons Introduce China-Africa Mining Transparency Act

Sens. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) and Chris Coons (D-DE) introduced the China-Africa Mining Transparency Act, which would direct the State Department to publish an annual list of Chinese entities using forced or child labor in African mining operations. The bill builds the documentary record needed to support targeted sanctions, import bans, and procurement exclusions across the critical minerals supply chain. Bipartisan sponsorship on forced-labor enforcement against Chinese mineral extraction signals the durability of the China hardline across the political spectrum, and follows last week’s House Select Committee report calling China’s African mining footprint a “Minerals Mafia.” The Tariff Times is preparing a significant report on minerals and protectionism.

Bill text

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — Initiation of Investigation: Commerce — Less-than-fair-value investigations on polytetramethylene ether glycol from China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. PTMEG is an industrial chemical input for spandex and polyurethane elastomers; a four-country case suggests Commerce sees a coordinated import surge worth treating as a single proceeding. Read notice

• Notice — Sunset Review Final Results: Commerce — Wood mouldings and millwork products from China, both AD and CVD orders found likely to recur if revoked. The orders will continue, preserving protection for domestic millwork producers against subsidized Chinese product. AD order | CVD order

• Notice — Institution of Investigations: ITC — Preliminary phase AD/CVD investigations on air compressors from China, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The Vietnam-Malaysia inclusion alongside China is a clear signal that Commerce and ITC are treating Southeast Asian transshipment as part of the same enforcement problem. Read notice

• Notice — Sunset Review Final Results: Commerce — Passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China, AD and CVD orders both confirmed for continuation. The China tire orders have been in place over a decade and remain a load-bearing pillar of the domestic tire industry. AD order | CVD order

• Notice — Continuation of Order: Commerce — Tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol from China, AD order continued. A small-volume specialty chemical case, but a reminder that the AD/CVD architecture protects niche producers as well as headline industries. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

The AGOA modernization window is the only deadline inside two weeks; the softwood lumber subsidy comment period and a five-country steel nails sunset sit behind it but matter to domestic producers.

• May 15 (closes in 10 days) — USTR: Comments on modernization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act ahead of expiration December 31. Domestic textile, apparel, and agricultural producers competing with AGOA duty-free imports should weigh in on rules-of-origin tightening and graduation thresholds. Read notice

• May 26 (closes in 21 days) — Commerce: Annual subsidy report on softwood lumber and softwood lumber products from exporting countries, July through December 2025. The Canadian stumpage subsidy fight is the perennial centerpiece; comments shape the evidence base for ongoing AD/CVD proceedings against Canadian softwood. Read notice

• June 1 (closes in 27 days) — ITC: Five-year sunset reviews on steel nails from Malaysia, Oman, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Domestic nail producers seeking to maintain the orders should file by the deadline; absent industry filings, the orders are vulnerable to revocation. Read notice

ON THE HILL

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8656: Domestic ballistic fiber mandate for DOJ body armor procurement. Tightens Buy American across federal law enforcement equipment and protects the small remaining base of U.S. para-aramid and UHMWPE fiber producers from Chinese substitutes. Referred to the House Judiciary Committee. View bill

• SRES 713: Resolution supporting the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency and resisting PRC economic influence. The dollar’s reserve status is a foundational instrument of American economic statecraft, and the resolution puts the Senate on record before any BRICS settlement architecture matures. Referred to Foreign Relations. View bill

• SRES 716: Sense of the Senate on critical elements of U.S. policy toward the PRC. A framework resolution rather than a binding measure, but a useful marker of where the Senate consensus on China policy is settling. Referred to Foreign Relations. View bill

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 5, 1891, Carnegie Hall opened in New York City, financed by Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born steel magnate whose industrial empire was built behind the protective tariff wall of the post-Civil War American System.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The administration’s trade week opens with the President raising tariffs on European autos and auto parts to 25 percent, citing EU non-compliance with the July 2025 framework. That move, paired with the House Select Committee on the CCP releasing its “Minerals Mafia” investigation and Ex-Im preparing the first Project Vault disbursement, frames a coordinated focus on two pressure points: durable bilateral leverage in Europe and physical control of the critical-minerals base. For domestic producers, the takeaway is that tariff posture and supply-chain financing are now moving on the same calendar.

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TODAY’S STORIES

President Raises Tariffs on European Autos and Auto Parts to 25 Percent

The administration on Friday announced an increase in tariffs on EU-origin cars and auto parts to 25 percent, with implementation set for next week under Section 232 authority. The President cited EU non-compliance with the July 2025 trade framework as the trigger; the European Commission said it remains committed to the existing arrangement and will keep “options open” if the U.S. proceeds. The move tightens the pressure on European producers to relocate assembly capacity to the United States, the same logic that drove the recent steel and aluminum framework offered to Canadian firms.

Inside Trade

House Select Committee Releases “Minerals Mafia” Investigation Into CCP Mining Practices

The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party on Friday released a three-part bipartisan investigation documenting fourteen cases of corruption, environmental damage, and forced and child labor by Chinese state-linked mining firms across Africa and Latin America. The committee’s central recommendation is that the United States can credibly position itself as the responsible alternative for host countries weighing critical-minerals investment terms. The report is the clearest articulation yet of a bipartisan congressional rationale for pairing trade tools with industrial financing in the minerals space.

House Select Committee on the CCP

Ex-Im Bank Says First Project Vault Disbursement Coming Within Weeks

Ex-Im chief banking officer Brian Greeley told the bank’s annual conference that the first tranche of Project Vault funding will be disbursed “in weeks,” the initial step toward building a stockpile of critical minerals and underwriting domestic and allied processing capacity. Project Vault operationalizes the financing leg of the administration’s critical-minerals strategy, converting policy intent into procurement contracts. For domestic processors and allied refiners, this is the first concrete capital signal of the year.

Inside Trade

United States and Poland Sign Critical Minerals Framework

Poland on Thursday became the first European Union member state to sign a critical-minerals framework agreement with the United States, concluded during the sixteenth round of the U.S.-Poland Strategic Dialogue in Warsaw. The agreement positions Polish processing and refining capacity as a hedge inside the EU customs union, useful for supply chains that need an EU-side complement to U.S. domestic production. Brussels will read this as both a partnership signal and a demonstration that bilateral minerals tracks can move faster than Commission-level negotiation.

Inside Trade

USGS Estimates 2.3 Million Tons of Recoverable Lithium in Appalachian States

The U.S. Geological Survey announced that recent agency studies place “undiscovered, economically recoverable” lithium deposits in the Carolinas, Maine, and New Hampshire at roughly 2.3 million metric tons, an amount sufficient to replace 2025 lithium imports more than three hundred times over. The finding strengthens the case for Section 232 and FAST-41 treatment of domestic lithium projects, since the resource-constraint argument for foreign sourcing is now substantially weaker. Domestic refiners and battery-cell builders should view this as additional federal evidence supporting the onshoring thesis.

U.S. Geological Survey

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Final affirmative determination that unwrought palladium from the Russian Federation is being sold in the U.S. at less than fair value, period of investigation January through June 2025. Palladium is a strategic metal for catalytic converters and electronics, and the determination clears the path for AD duties on a Russia-dominated supply line. Read notice

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Initiation of countervailing duty investigation on carbon and alloy steel wire rod from Algeria. The case opens a new front in steel-input enforcement against a smaller producer that has been gaining U.S. market share at the expense of established AD/CVD-disciplined origins. Read notice

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Final results of the antidumping administrative reviews of large diameter welded pipe from Canada and the Republic of Korea, finding sales below normal value by Pipe & Piling (Canada) and SeAH Steel (Korea). The findings confirm that AD discipline on a key infrastructure input is holding through the current review cycle. Read pipe-Canada notice

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Initiation of administrative reviews of multiple AD and CVD orders with March anniversary dates. The annual rebalancing sets duty rates for the coming year and is the moment domestic petitioners file the data that drives the next rate calculation. Read notice

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Initiation of automatic five-year sunset reviews of multiple AD/CVD orders, running concurrently with the ITC institutions noted in On the Docket below. Together they form the next sunset cycle that domestic industries must defend. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

Sunset-review week at the ITC; four parallel five-year reviews on steel and pigment orders all close June 1, with a Commerce cheese-subsidies update opening behind them.

• Jun 01 (new, closes in 28 days) — International Trade Commission: Five-year sunset reviews on steel nails (Malaysia, Oman, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam), steel grating (China), welded line pipe (South Korea, Turkey), and carbazole violet pigment 23 (China, India). Domestic producers and trade associations need to file substantive responses to keep these orders alive; failure to respond risks revocation and a flood of duty-free entries. Steel nails | Steel grating | Welded line pipe | Carbazole violet 23

• Jun 30 (new, closes in 57 days) — Department of Commerce: Quarterly update to the annual listing of foreign government subsidies on cheese subject to in-quota duty rates. Dairy producers and trade groups can file information on subsidy programs that need to be reflected in the next listing, an under-noticed lever for U.S. dairy. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

No House Ways and Means or Senate Finance trade hearings or markups appear on this morning’s pull; a likely quiet week on the calendar with the export-control package already moved out of committee.

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8615: Bill to combat China’s unfair and non-market-oriented practices in the shipbuilding industry. Sets a framework for trade tools targeted at Chinese shipyard subsidies and complements the Kim-Lawler-Radewagen “FLEET” bill introduced the same week, which would establish a White House shipbuilding czar and a State Department shipbuilding assistant secretary. Referred to House Foreign Affairs. View bill

• HR 8169: Export Control Enforcement and Enhancement Act. Strengthens BIS enforcement authority and resources; reported out of committee unanimously, 44-0, indicating broad bipartisan support for tightening export-control discipline against China. Ordered reported in the nature of a substitute. View bill

• HR 8288: Strengthening Export Controls Compliance Act. Tightens compliance obligations on exporters dealing in controlled technologies; reported 39-5, signaling that the broader export-control reform package is on a fast track. View bill

• HR 8202: Ten-year statute of limitations for export control violations. Extends the enforcement window so DOJ and BIS have the time needed to pursue complex cases that have, in the past, run out the clock. Reported 44-0. View bill

• HR 8337: Buy American Seafood Act. Strengthens domestic-procurement preferences for federal seafood purchasing, a small but meaningful build-out of buy-American policy into a sector dominated by imports. Referred to Education and Workforce, Agriculture, Armed Services, and Transportation and Infrastructure. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

No new House Ways and Means or Senate Finance trade statements in today’s pull.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 4, 1626, Peter Minuit arrived at the mouth of the Hudson to take up his post as director-general of New Netherland for the Dutch West India Company. Within months he would conclude the transaction with local Lenape representatives, recorded in a single line of a Dutch merchant's letter, that handed Manhattan to the Dutch for trade goods valued at sixty guilders and seeded New York's role as the country's commercial capital

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The United States Trade representative’s Special 301 designation of Vietnam as a “Priority Foreign Country” is a very welcome development. This designation is reserved for the most egregious actors and opens the door to further Section 301 investigation, much needed considering that particularly since Liberation Day, Vietnam has acted as a transshipment pub for Chinese goods. On Capitol Hill, the China conversation has moved beyond AI model theft toward broader patterns of industrial espionage and IP violations, while the administration’s “Trade Over Aid” initiative shifts engagement with developing countries toward commercial partnerships and private investment. Across the board, the administration is restructuring our international trade relations on a platform that favors American workers and American industry and reduces systematic dependencies for all parties. You can see that the plan is working as U.S Steel yesterday opens a new plant, and today Rivian announces major expansion of productive capacity inside the United States. Tariffs work!

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TODAY’S STORIES

Rivian Expands Capacity for Georgia EV Plant

Rivian announced an optimized capacity plan that will provide a fifty percent increase in phase one production capacity, for its Georgia manufacturing complex. Domestic auto assembly capacity is the core of any serious reindustrialization argument, and Georgia’s continued buildout illustrates how state-level industrial policy and federal trade protection are now operating in tandem to keep advanced-vehicle production on American soil.

Rivian

Senator Bernie Moreno Introduces Act to Ban Chinese Vehicles and Components from U.S. Market

Senators Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan introduced the Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, prohibiting the import, sale, and operation of vehicles manufactured in China or other countries of concern, along with Chinese-developed connected vehicle software, data systems, and hardware. The bipartisan structure of the bill, paired with endorsements from UAW President Shawn Fain, General Motors, American Compass, and the CAR Coalition, signals a rare alignment of labor, domestic producers, and the protectionist policy community around a single sectoral defense measure. For the American System tradition the significance is concrete: autos remain the largest industrial supply chain in the country, and a categorical ban on adversary-state vehicles closes the loophole that European and Mexican markets have left open, ensuring that subsidized Chinese capacity cannot attack American consumers and domestic EV companies.

Office of Senator Moreno

USTR Designates Vietnam a “Priority Foreign Country” for IP, Opens Door to Section 301 Probe

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s annual Special 301 report names Vietnam a Priority Foreign Country, the most severe label in the framework and one that triggers consideration of a Section 301 investigation. For American industrial policy the significance is direct: producers in pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing have long flagged Vietnamese counterfeiting, weak IP enforcement, and transshipment of Chinese goods as a structural cost, and a Section 301 probe would create the legal predicate for sectoral tariff response.

Inside Trade

Administration Launches “Trade Over Aid” With Thirty-Five Countries

The administration formally launched its Trade Over Aid initiative this week at the New York Stock Exchange, with thirty-five UN member states signing on. The framework reorients U.S. engagement with developing countries away from traditional aid and toward private-sector investment, commercial partnerships, and market-based reforms. Read alongside the AGOA modernization docket opened last week, this signals a coherent administration thesis: development relationships should be structured around durable commercial ties that also serve American industrial interests, rather than transfers that subsidize state-led economies abroad. This allows the flexibility for policy makers to structure trade relations with these nations in a way that favors the exchange of rare materials and goods that are absolutely critical, while not locking either nation into systemic dependency.

Inside Trade

CPA: Capitol Hill’s China Conversation Centers on Trade Theft, Espionage, and IP

The Coalition for a Prosperous America’s latest analysis traces the shift in congressional China hearings from narrow concerns about AI model theft toward the broader and more durable pattern of industrial espionage, technology transfer, and IP violation that has shaped the U.S.-China economic relationship for two decades. The framing matters because it directs legislative energy toward structural remedies, export controls, outbound investment screening, sectoral tariffs, rather than toward narrow firm-level fixes that leave the underlying capacity question unaddressed.

Coalition for a Prosperous America

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Antidumping duty order issued on steel concrete reinforcing bar (rebar) from Algeria, completing the case after affirmative Commerce and ITC determinations. A new line of structural-steel protection comes online for domestic mills competing against North African subsidized capacity. Read notice

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Initiation of countervailing duty investigation on carbon and alloy steel wire rod from Algeria. The second Algeria steel case in a week signals Commerce is treating Algerian steel exports as a coordinated subsidy problem, not a one-off. Read notice

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Final affirmative LTFV determination on unwrought palladium from the Russian Federation. A consequential critical-minerals determination that will reset import economics for U.S. autocatalyst and electronics supply chains and accelerate qualification of allied refining capacity. Read notice

• Notice: Department of Commerce — Technical corrections to the HTSUS implementing Presidential Proclamation 11021 on steel, aluminum, and copper. The corrections operationalize the April expansion of Section 232 derivative coverage; importers should reread classification schedules immediately. Read notice

• Proposed Rule: International Trade Commission — Section 337 adjudication and enforcement amendments to require ownership and financial-interest disclosure by parties and intervenors. A modest but useful transparency reform that limits the ability of foreign-controlled entities to litigate IP disputes in U.S. forums without disclosure. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

Sunset-review day at the ITC: a six-pack of five-year review windows on China-origin products closes today, with USTR’s AGOA modernization docket and four newly opened ITC sunsets queued behind it.

• May 01 (closes today) — ITC: Five-year sunset reviews on six China-origin product orders. Closing today are the comment windows that let domestic producers and trade associations weigh in on whether existing AD/CVD orders should remain in place; failing to file leaves the record incomplete and risks revocation. Wire strand | Mattresses | Vertical shaft engines | Boltless shelving | Steel cylinders | Chassis

• May 15 (closes in 14 days) — USTR: AGOA modernization comments. The administration is rewriting the architecture of preference programs for sub-Saharan Africa; domestic producers in textiles, agriculture, and processed minerals have a direct interest in the rules of origin and graduation criteria that emerge. Read notice

• Jun 29 (new, closes in 59 days) — ITC: Section 337 adjudication and enforcement disclosure rule. Trade associations representing IP-holding U.S. manufacturers should weigh in on the proposed ownership-disclosure regime. Read notice

• Jul 13 (new, closes in 73 days) — ITC: Four newly opened five-year sunset reviews. Comment windows let domestic industries argue for continuation of existing AD/CVD relief; covers steel-sector and chemical orders that protect mature U.S. supplier bases. Steel nails | Steel grating | Welded line pipe | Carbazole violet

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• May 08 — House Education and Workforce (field hearing, Indiana): “Protecting Workers and Powering America: The Future of Mining.” Outside the standard W&M/Finance trade calendar, but directly relevant: critical-minerals reshoring depends on workforce capacity in mining states, and the field venue at Vincennes University signals where the administration wants to anchor the conversation. Committee page

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8615: A bill to combat China’s unfair and non-market-oriented trade practices in shipbuilding. Aims squarely at the most acute strategic-industrial gap in the U.S. economy, where Chinese state-directed capacity has driven domestic shipbuilding into near-dormancy; advances the American System case for protected, restored maritime manufacturing. Status: referred to House Foreign Affairs (April 30). View bill

• HR 8621: Requires the State Department to publish an annual list of PRC-origin entities involved in forced-labor mining or environmental harm in specified African countries. A useful complement to UFLPA enforcement, building the evidentiary infrastructure needed to extend forced-labor import restrictions into upstream critical-minerals supply chains. Status: referred to House Foreign Affairs (April 30). View bill

• Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026: Passed the House 224-200 on April 30. Directs USTR to negotiate against foreign geographical indication regimes that lock American producers out of common food names abroad. Sits at the intersection of agricultural trade and IP strategy, and pairs with the Vietnam Special 301 designation as a coherent IP posture. Status: passed House. View action

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

Committees quiet on trade statements this week.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On May 1, 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition opened in Chicago, showcasing American industrial supremacy to the world during the McKinley Tariff era; the fair drew twenty-seven million visitors and demonstrated, in steel, dynamos, and machinery, what a high-protection home market could build.

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“I am fully persuaded that if the spirit of industry, economy and patriotism, which seems now beginning to dawn, should exert itself to a proper latitude, that we shall very soon be able to furnish ourselves at least with every necessary and useful fabrick upon better terms than they can be imported without any extraordinary legal assistance—I shall always take a peculiar pleasure in giving every proper encouragement in my power to the manufactures of my Country.” — George Washington to Daniel Hinsdale, April 8, 1789

On this day, 237 years ago, George Washington was sworn in as the first President of the United States. What most don’t know, is just how important the tariff and manufacturing independence was to the first President. So much so, that it played a defining role on his Inauguration Day.

The winter at Valley Forge during the American Revolutionary War was a lesson George Washington and his aid-de-camp Alexander Hamilton would never forget.

Eleven thousand Continental soldiers spent the winter of 1777 to 1778 in a Pennsylvania encampment with no shoes, no coats, and no blankets fit for the cold. Roughly two thousand of them died of exposure, malnutrition, and disease before the spring. Washington’s men were freezing not because the country lacked patriotism but because it lacked factories.

The British colonial system had spent decades making sure the future United States had no factories and could not provide for itself. The Wool Act of 1699, the Hat Act of 1732, and the Iron Act of 1750 had specifically forbidden the colonies from manufacturing finished goods that might compete with English producers. Thus when the Revolution came, the army that fought for American independence was clothed in scraps, foreign imports, and what little the home spinners could produce on their own.

Washington watched his men die for want of cloth. He never forgot it.

Eleven years later, on April 30, 1789, he stood on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York and took the oath of office as the first President of the United States, making a deliberate point to wear a suit fully made in America with American materials.

His brown broadcloth suit had been woven at the Hartford Woolen Manufactory in Connecticut, after Washington had ordered it months earlier. Receiving an American-made suit for the occasion was so important to Washington that he personally directed the order through Henry Knox, his former artillery commander at Valley Forge. Cloth samples and button sketches traveled between Hartford and Mount Vernon for months before the inauguration. Twenty-two days before the inauguration, he had written to the firm’s agent: he would always take peculiar pleasure in giving every proper encouragement in his power to the manufactures of his country, and intended to protect American manufactures as President of the United States.

Ten weeks later, Washington signed the Tariff Act of 1789, the very first act of Congress after they had regulated the administration of oaths. James Madison had first introduced the Tariff Resolution the same day Washington wrote his letter to the Hartford manufacturer. This tariff would raise duties on imported manufactures and offered not just protection for Americans, but revenue for a federal government loaded with war debt. The tariff in every sense was the foundation on which the national government was built.

In 1791, Washington signed legislation creating the First Bank of the United States, siding with Hamilton against Jefferson on the question of whether the new republic needed institutions capable of fostering manufactures, credit, and commerce at scale. He did so over Jefferson’s constitutional objections because he understood what Jefferson did not. A republic that could not clothe its own soldiers could not defend its own independence. The men at Valley Forge had taught him that lesson at a price the country should not have to pay twice.

President Trump’s love of the tariff is nothing new or alien to the American experience. The nation was built with the tariff. The nation will become great again with the tariff. The American system took its shape 237 years ago, on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City, with a man in an American suit committing the federal government to the protection of American industry.

That is the anniversary worth marking today, and the legacy worth celebrating. The Republic’s first president was in the language of our moment, a tariff man. He had earned that conviction in the snow at Valley Forge, and would continue in that conviction through his life.

THE BOTTOM LINE

A little less than a year ago, Trump spoke at U.S. Steel Corporation's Irvin Works facility in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania after defending U.S Steel from a Japanese takeover. He promised Pennsylvania steelworkers he would fight for them, and fight to protect American steel in this country. Unlike other politicians, who make massive promises and then do the exact opposite, President Trump DELIVERED. The big news of the day is that the Presidents industrial program has resulted in U.S. Steel announcing the country’s first commercial direct reduced iron facility at Big River Steel Works, a foundational addition to the domestic steel supply chain. Trump delivered. At the same time, Congressional appropriators are moving to fund the administration’s trade-enforcement capacity at requested levels, meaning that the Presidents agenda will be enforced. Furthermore, the Coalition for a Prosperous America, has launched a warning against dependence on foreign antibiotic supply chains. Tackling this problem is likely to be an increasing focus of the Trump administration.

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TODAY’S STORIES

U.S. Steel Announces First U.S. Direct Reduced Iron Facility at Big River Steel Works

U.S. Steel announced plans for a first-of-its-kind commercial direct reduced iron (DRI) facility at its Big River Steel Works campus, a development that adds a critical upstream node to the domestic steel supply chain. DRI capacity allows American mills to produce high-purity inputs without relying on imported pig iron or merchant slab, the kind of domestic capacity that Section 232 protections were designed to make commercially viable. The investment is the most concrete industrial response yet to the tightened metals tariff framework the administration has put in place.

Source: Business Wire

CPA Sounds Alarm on Antibiotic Supply Chain Vulnerabilities

The Coalition for a Prosperous America issued a research note warning that the United States remains acutely dependent on foreign producers, particularly Chinese firms, for the active pharmaceutical ingredients used in essential antibiotics. CPA called for coordinated tariff, procurement, and investment policy to rebuild domestic and allied production capacity for finished antibiotics and their precursors. Pharmaceuticals remain among the more complex sectors to onshore, and this note maps a path forward consistent with the administration’s broader industrial agenda.

Source: Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA)

House Appropriators Move to Fully Fund USTR and BIS Requests

House Appropriations Republicans released a fiscal 2027 spending bill that grants the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Bureau of Industry and Security the substantial funding increases the agencies requested, with a Commerce, Justice, Science subcommittee markup scheduled this week. USTR is conducting more bilateral negotiations than at any time in recent memory, and BIS is administering an expanding set of export controls and Section 232 actions. Adequate appropriations are the unglamorous backbone of an active trade policy.

Source: House Committee on Appropriations

House Hearing Connects Copper Shortfall to Permitting Reform

The House Natural Resources subcommittee on energy and mineral resources, chaired by Pete Stauber, examined a projected 20 percent global copper supply shortfall by 2040 and the case for permitting reform that would allow domestic mines to come online faster. Industry witnesses described how Chinese dominance in refined copper compounds the problem for U.S. manufacturers and defense suppliers. Copper is a foundational input for electrification, defense systems, and modern manufacturing, and any serious reindustrialization program will require domestic supply at scale.

Source: House Natural Resources

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — Department of Commerce: Technical corrections to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule under Presidential Proclamation 11021 on aluminum, steel, and copper imports. The corrections refine implementation rather than alter scope, the latest sign that Commerce is operationalizing the broadened metals framework with care. Read notice

• Notice — Department of Commerce: Initiation of countervailing duty and less-than-fair-value investigations on certain oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from Austria, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates. Domestic OCTG producers, who supply the energy sector with critical pipe, secure another track of relief against subsidized and dumped imports. CVD initiation | LTFV initiation

• Notice — Department of Commerce: Antidumping duty order issued on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Algeria following affirmative determinations from Commerce and the ITC. The order closes a circumvention path that had eroded margins for domestic rebar mills. Read notice

• Proposed Rule — International Trade Commission: Proposed amendments to Section 337 rules requiring disclosure of ownership and financial interests in investigations and ancillary proceedings. Greater transparency about who is funding 337 cases helps domestic complainants identify foreign-state and litigation-finance interests on the other side of the table. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

Sunset-review week: six ITC five-year reviews on China-origin merchandise all close tomorrow, with the AGOA modernization docket the only material new filing behind them.

• May 01 (closes tomorrow) — International Trade Commission: Five-year sunset reviews on six orders covering prestressed concrete steel wire strand from China, mattresses (China plus Cambodia, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam), small vertical shaft engines from China, boltless steel shelving from China, non-refillable steel cylinders from China, and chassis and subassemblies from China. Sunset reviews determine whether existing AD/CVD orders stay in force; comments from domestic producers and trade associations are how the ITC develops the record needed to maintain protection against renewed dumping or subsidization. Wire strand | Mattresses | Engines | Shelving | Cylinders | Chassis

• May 15 (new, closes in 15 days) — Office of the U.S. Trade Representative: Modernization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), with USTR developing recommendations for forthcoming Congressional reauthorization consideration. Producers in textiles, autos, and agriculture have a narrow window to shape how AGOA preferences are restructured to favor genuine African industrial development without becoming a back door for Chinese transshipment. Read notice

• June 29 (new, closes in 60 days) — International Trade Commission: Proposed amendments to Section 337 rules on disclosure of ownership and financial interests in investigations. Domestic complainants and IP holders should weigh in on disclosure language that will determine how foreign-state and litigation-finance involvement gets surfaced in 337 cases. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

No upcoming Ways and Means or Senate Finance trade hearings or markups have been noticed in the next fourteen days; both committees came off a busy week of health-policy work and trade-relevant items have not yet been calendared.

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8583: Prohibit duties on phosphate fertilizer imports under Sections 122 or 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The bill would carve out an entire input class from the President’s tariff toolkit, narrowing flexibility on a commodity where domestic production matters for both food security and the broader chemicals supply chain. Referred to House Ways and Means on April 29. View bill

• HR 8580: Reduce duties by 50 percent on forestry-products imports when the importer demonstrates 100 percent U.S.-origin raw wood content. The bill rewards integrated supply chains anchored in American timber and is worth watching as a template for content-based tariff modulation. Referred to House Ways and Means on April 29. View bill

• HR 8586: Amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to protect American workers and values. The bill connects immigration policy to the labor-standards leg of the American System framework; how the language treats H-1B, agricultural visas, and L-1 transfers will determine its industrial impact. Referred to Judiciary and Education and Workforce on April 29. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

No new House Ways and Means trade-filtered statements crossed the wire in the last 72 hours.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 30, 1789, George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York, inaugurating the administration that within ten weeks enacted the Tariff Act of 1789, the new republic’s first revenue measure and the foundation stone on which Hamilton and later Clay would build the American System.

Tariff Times Daily is published by the American Protective Tariff League.

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The Tariff Times

Why Washington Wore an American Suit to His Own Inauguration

“I am fully persuaded that if the spirit of industry, economy and patriotism, which seems now beginning to dawn, should exert itself to a proper latitude, that we shall very soon be able to furnish ourselves at least with every necessary and useful fabrick upon better terms than they can be imported without any extraordinary legal assistance—I shall alw…

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2 months ago · 1 like · William Hamilton

THE BOTTOM LINE

Today we see huge affirmation that President Trumps administration continues to see success. First, we saw Commerce with a huge win by moving toward a preliminary affirmative dumping determinations against solar cells from India, Indonesia, and Laos, advancing the supply-chain case the Coalition for a Prosperous America has been pressing toward a polysilicon Section 232. CBO meanwhile recalibrated its revenue projections to account for the higher marginal tariff rate now baked into federal receipts, which strengthens the protectionist case for using tariff revenue as a structural fiscal building block, and shows that the Congress is beginning to see the value in tariffs. Also, USTR has opened a formal docket inviting comments on how to shape AGOA in a way that would conform with the needs of manufacturers and the public as well as the Presidents trade agenda.

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TODAY’S STORIES

Commerce Issues Preliminary Antidumping Determinations on Solar Cells from India, Indonesia, and Laos

The Department of Commerce on Monday issued preliminary affirmative determinations that crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from India, Indonesia, and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic are being sold in the United States at less than fair value, with critical-circumstances findings in part. Taken together, the three actions move forward the broader effort to close the circumvention paths that have undercut domestic solar manufacturing. CPA has urged the administration to extend the same logic upstream through a Section 232 case on polysilicon, the missing link in a fully domestic solar supply chain.

Federal Register / Department of Commerce

USTR Opens AGOA Modernization Docket, Comments Due May 15

USTR published a Federal Register notice inviting comments on how to modernize the African Growth and Opportunity Act in line with the administration’s trade approach. Greer told Ways and Means last week that AGOA reform sits at the top of the agenda, and the formal docket now puts that intent on a defined timetable. The opening signals that future preference programs will be calibrated to American worker and producer interests rather than legacy assumptions about open access. It is critical in this moment that Protectionist minded members of manufacturing organizations and the public share their thoughts to calibrate the future of AGOA in a way that nullifies its dangerous qualities. While open trade with Africa can be harmful both for the United States and Africa, the free import of certain raw goods from Africa remains important to U.S business and strategic needs.

USTR

CBO Adjusts Revenue Rules of Thumb to Reflect Higher Tariff Receipts

The Congressional Budget Office has updated its revenue and deficit projection rules to incorporate the higher marginal tariff rate established through executive action during the first year of the new Trump administration. CBO notes that with tariffs at a higher base, federal revenue is now more sensitive to economy-wide factors such as inflation and labor productivity. The recalibration confirms that tariff revenue has moved from a marginal line item to a structural feature of the federal balance sheet, supporting the case CPA has been making that tariffs can serve as a credible budget pay-for.

Congressional Budget Office

CBP Reports Tariff Refund System Processing 75,000 Claims in First Week

In its first overview to the Court of International Trade, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that its post-judgment refund system has received more than 75,000 claims covering over 10 million shipments, of which roughly 1.74 million have been liquidated.

Inside Trade

CPA: AI Hearing Highlights Chinese Industrial Capacity, Not Just Model Theft

The Coalition for a Prosperous America covered a recent congressional hearing in which lawmakers framed the conversation around China stealing American AI models, while expert witnesses redirected attention to the larger question of Chinese industrial capacity in semiconductors and AI hardware. The piece argues that the practical risk lies less in stolen models than in the productive base that gives China the ability to deploy AI at scale. For the American System, the implication is that protection must extend across the hardware stack, not merely the algorithms.

Coalition for a Prosperous America

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice: Commerce published technical corrections to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule implementing Presidential Proclamation 11021 on aluminum, steel, and copper. Routine maintenance of the Section 232 metals architecture, but it confirms the administration is keeping the schedule current as derivatives and product-coverage updates flow through. Read notice

• Notice: Commerce issued a final antidumping duty order on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Algeria following affirmative final determinations by Commerce and the ITC. Another country added to the rebar AD discipline; domestic rebar producers gain protection against an emerging source of unfairly priced supply. Read notice

• Notice: Commerce initiated less-than-fair-value investigations on oil country tubular goods from Austria, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates, alongside a parallel CVD investigation on Austrian OCTG. Three new fronts opened against unfairly priced energy-sector pipe; OCTG producers in Texas, Ohio, and the Gulf states should track the preliminary timetable closely. LTFV initiation | Austria CVD initiation

• Notice: Commerce determined that seamless OCTG produced in Thailand using Chinese steel billets is within the scope of the China AD/CVD orders. The covered-merchandise determination closes a transshipment route that had allowed Chinese steel content to reach U.S. customers under Thai cover. Read notice

• Notice: Commerce issued a parallel covered-merchandise determination on certain chassis and subassemblies from China, finding specific imports within scope of existing AD/CVD orders. Closes another evasion vector for the chassis order, which the domestic chassis industry has been pressing to keep watertight. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

Sunset-review week; six ITC five-year reviews on Chinese-origin orders close Friday, with the new AGOA modernization docket opening behind them.

• May 1, ITC (closes in 2 days): Five-year sunset reviews on six Chinese-origin AD/CVD orders covering prestressed concrete steel wire strand, mattresses (China plus Cambodia, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam), small vertical shaft engines, boltless steel shelving, non-refillable steel cylinders, and chassis and subassemblies. These reviews determine whether the orders remain in place for another five years; domestic producers and trade associations who do not file responses risk seeing the orders revoked. Wire strand | Mattresses | Small vertical shaft engines | Boltless steel shelving | Non-refillable steel cylinders | Chassis and subassemblies

• May 15, USTR (new, closes in 16 days): Comments on the modernization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. USTR will use the input to inform recommendations to Congress on AGOA reauthorization; domestic industry, labor, and policy commenters can shape how preferences are conditioned on labor standards, rules of origin, and reciprocity. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• Apr 29 (today), House Ways and Means: Full committee markup of HR 7432, HR 7463, HR 7343, HR 7529, HR 7655, and HR 7995. Bill titles were not included in the published notice; the markup falls within the committee’s full jurisdiction, which includes trade and tariff matters.

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 4930: Expanded sharing of information on suspected intellectual-property-rights violations in trade. Strengthens the enforcement architecture against pirated and counterfeit goods that displace American producers. The motion to reconsider was laid on the table without objection on Apr 27, indicating House passage. View bill

• HR 8556: Improved DOD oversight of compliance with domestic food supply chain requirements. Reinforces the federal interest in keeping defense food procurement inside U.S. borders, an applied case of the broader buy-American principle. Referred to House Armed Services on Apr 28. View bill

• HR 8471: Tariff Act amendment prohibiting the importation of nonhuman primates. Narrow in subject but worth tracking as a continued use of Tariff Act authority for adjacent ends; sets precedents for using customs statutes beyond pure trade-policy purposes. Referred to Ways and Means on Apr 23. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

No new W&M trade statements in the last 72 hours.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 29, 1862, Federal forces under Admiral David Farragut completed the capture of New Orleans, severing the Confederacy’s largest port and reshaping American cotton commerce for the duration of the war. If you visit Washington D.C, you will immediately recognize that Farragut park and the Farragut North and West Metro stops are named after him.

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