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 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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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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21 days 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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THE BOTTOM LINE

The administration moved on multiple industrial-policy tracks today. President Trump signed legislation reopening more than 225,000 acres of Minnesota’s Duluth Complex to mineral development; USTR opened two days of Section 301 hearings on whether partner countries adequately police forced-labor imports, a probe widely understood as the foundation for the next generation of duty authority after the Supreme Court rejected the IEEPA tariff basis; and Commerce issued preliminary affirmative dumping determinations against solar cells from India, Indonesia, and Laos. The picture is one of compounding enforcement at the upstream resource, midstream tariff calibration, and import-flow ends of the supply chain.

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TODAY’S STORIES

Trump Signs Resolution Ending 20-Year Minnesota Mining Ban

On Monday the President signed Rep. Pete Stauber’s Congressional Review Act resolution overturning the Biden-era ban on mineral development across more than 225,000 acres in Minnesota. The land sits over part of the Duluth Complex, one of the largest known U.S. reserves of copper, nickel, and platinum-group metals, and reopening it puts those resources back in the domestic pipeline at a moment when critical-minerals policy is a central administration priority. Stauber, who chairs the House Natural Resources energy and mineral resources subcommittee, sponsored the underlying resolution. However, for mining to begin, projects would still need to acquire state permits and comply with local environmental laws. Contrary to Democrat talking points, the blanket ban that Trump is overturning took policy out of the hands of Minnesotans. This change puts the power back in the states hands to determine the future of these vast reserves.

Inside Trade

USTR Opens Two Days of Section 301 Forced-Labor Hearings

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative this week takes testimony in its Section 301 investigation of whether 86 countries adequately enforce against goods made with forced labor. The probe, launched March 12 and covering 60 economies, is expected to provide the legal foundation for a successor tariff regime after the Supreme Court rejected the IEEPA basis for prior duties. A finding here would give the United States a durable, statutorily grounded instrument to discipline imports made under labor conditions American producers do not match. Most do not realize the dramatic extent to which slave labor is still a major problem globally, with the United States under President Trump leading the way in tracing and enforcing against child and slave labor in both terms.

United States Trade Representative

BIS Tightens Section 232 to Exclude Non-Metal Derivatives

The Bureau of Industry and Security on Monday issued a technical correction to the April 2026 presidential proclamation on aluminum, steel, and copper, clarifying that products containing none of the covered metals fall outside the scope, and fixing the United Kingdom rate. While weakening the scope of the tariffs by narrowing the scope of the metals tariff structure to focus on actual metal content, this move reduces the surface area for legal challenges of the Section 232 program. Congress will need to play a rule further protect American aluminum, steel, and copper.

Bureau of Industry and Security

Defense Industrial Base Group Calls for Unified Rare Earth Office

The National Defense Industrial Association, in its 2026 Vital Signs report, urged the federal government to create a single coordinating office for rare earth supply-chain efforts and asked Congress to stand up a permitting and licensing commission for critical minerals projects. The recommendation aligns with the direction of administration policy, including last week’s FAST-41 designation for the Tennessee zinc and rare earth refinery and the Korea critical-minerals framework signed earlier this month. A consolidated coordination function would reduce friction between Pentagon procurement, DOE loan authority, Commerce trade tools, and Interior permitting.

National Defense Industrial Association

Former Commerce Official to Automakers: Build U.S. Hubs Now Ahead of USMCA Review

Writing for the Atlantic Council, former Deputy Assistant Commerce Secretary for Manufacturing Alex Krutz outlined three scenarios for the upcoming USMCA review and argued that the manufacturers best positioned regardless of outcome will be those already strengthening their American production footprint. The advice is consistent with public signals from administration officials, including Deputy USTR Switzer’s recent contrast between Mexico and Canada. For the auto sector, the lesson is that betting on indefinite continuation of the current cross-border integration model carries more risk than investing in domestic capacity.

Atlantic Council

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice (Commerce): Preliminary affirmative less-than-fair-value determinations on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from India, Indonesia, and Laos, with affirmative findings of critical circumstances in part. The trio of determinations advances the solar supply-chain case CPA has been pressing and signals continued discipline against transshipment patterns the administration has been working to close. India | Indonesia | Laos

• Notice (Commerce): Initiation of a countervailing duty investigation on certain oil country tubular goods from Austria, alongside parallel less-than-fair-value investigations of OCTG from Austria, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates. OCTG sits at the heart of the domestic energy supply chain, and a fresh CVD docket plus a three-country LTFV inquiry opens a significant new front for U.S. pipe and tube producers. CVD initiation | LTFV initiation

• Notice (Commerce): Final covered-merchandise determinations on Chinese OCTG processed in Thailand, and on Chinese chassis subassemblies, finding the products subject to existing AD/CVD orders. These circumvention closures keep duty obligations attached to the underlying Chinese product rather than allowing third-country processing to wash off the tariff. OCTG/China | Chassis/China

• Notice (Commerce): Preliminary results of the AD administrative review on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand for the 2024-2025 review period, finding sales at less than normal value. Routine on its face, this is the grind-it-out enforcement work that keeps Thai pipe imports from undercutting domestic mills. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

Sunset-review week; six ITC five-year reviews of long-running orders, mostly against Chinese imports, all close Friday in a single calendar squeeze.

• May 01 (closes in 3 days) — ITC: Five-year sunset reviews of AD/CVD orders on prestressed concrete steel wire strand, mattresses (China plus Cambodia, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam), small vertical shaft engines, boltless steel shelving, non-refillable steel cylinders, and chassis and subassemblies. Sunset reviews determine whether revoking the orders would likely lead to continuation or recurrence of material injury; domestic producers and trade associations need to file by Friday to keep the orders in force, since silence reads as acquiescence. Wire strand | Mattresses | Small engines | Shelving | Steel cylinders | Chassis

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• Apr 28 — House Ways and Means: Full Committee hearing with health system CEOs. Not directly trade-focused, though pharmaceutical supply chains and generic drug manufacturing remain live trade-policy questions if they surface in member questioning.

• Apr 29 — House Ways and Means: Markup of a six-bill package (HR 7432, HR 7463, HR 7343, HR 7529, HR 7655, HR 7995). Subject matter not specified in the docket entries available; worth confirming whether any touch trade, customs, or revenue.

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8287, Semiconductor Controls Effectiveness Act of 2026: Strengthens U.S. export-control enforcement on advanced semiconductors. Ordered to be reported by a 43-0 vote on April 22, a unanimous tally that suggests the technology-control consensus is holding even as broader trade-policy debates intensify. Status: ordered reported, awaiting full chamber action. View bill

• HR 4930: Expands information-sharing on suspected violations of intellectual property rights in trade. Cleared the House on April 27 with the motion to reconsider laid on the table. Modest in scope but it tightens the enforcement plumbing for a chronic IP problem with Chinese imports. View bill

• HR 8535: Directs DHS to develop performance metrics for detection, deterrence, and seizure of fentanyl. Referred to House Homeland Security on April 27. Fentanyl precursors travel the same de minimis and forced-labor enforcement gaps that complicate consumer-goods customs work, so metrics-driven oversight here can spill into broader import-control discipline. View bill

• HR 4434, Cosmetic Supply Chain Transparency Act of 2025: Imposes supply-chain disclosure requirements on cosmetic imports. Sitting in House Energy and Commerce since last summer; one to watch as forced-labor disclosure regimes expand into new product categories. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

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

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TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 28, 1788, Maryland ratified the U.S. Constitution as the seventh state, signing onto the framework that gave the federal government the power to lay tariffs and conduct a unified commercial policy, the foundation Hamilton would put to work the next year in the Tariff of 1789.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The administration’s bilateral and sectoral track produced concrete deliverables this week. A U.S.-EU action plan on critical minerals, signed in Washington by Secretary Rubio and Commissioner Šefčovič, sketches a plurilateral framework for coordinated trade policy and pricing in a sector central to current industrial policy. Pair that with FAST-41 permitting status for a new zinc and critical minerals refinery in Tennessee and Wyoming’s takeover of rare earth waste regulation from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the architecture of a domestic processing base is taking shape. The administration is pairing industrial policy with industrial results, and the numbers are beginning to reflect this strongly.

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TODAY’S STORIES

U.S. and EU Sign Critical Minerals Action Plan; Steel Talks Advance

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič signed a U.S.-EU action plan for critical minerals supply chain resiliency this week, broadly outlining components of a potential plurilateral agreement that could include coordinated trade policies and pricing mechanisms. Šefčovič also pointed to progress in steel talks with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, including new technical discussions on derivative tariffs and the possibility of “ring-fencing” U.S. and EU markets from global excess capacity. For American producers, an aligned trans-Atlantic posture against subsidized state-driven overcapacity is the necessary complement to domestic Section 232 protection. The key going forward, is to ensure that if the E.U wants in on a deal, they have to entirely comply with American standards and enforcement, otherwise the spirit of any deal is undercut.

Inside Trade

Trump Offers Immediate Tariff Relief to Canadian Steel and Aluminum Firms That Expand in the U.S.

The President signaled that Canadian aluminum and steel companies committing to expand operations inside the United States would receive immediate tariff relief, a structure that converts trade leverage into a reshoring incentive. The mechanism is worth watching: it pairs a credible tariff with a clear path to relief for firms willing to bring production capacity inside U.S. borders. Critically, if aluminum and steel companies were relocated into the United States, enforcement of key trade barriers and rules will be far easier, as Canada lacks the will not only to enforce but to even create the administrative capability for enforcement. This is likely not the finished offer of whatever agreement Trump will eventually come to with the Canadians, but it's interesting to see him apply pressure on the Canadians to relocate into the U.S.

CBC

Tennessee Zinc and Critical Minerals Refinery Wins FAST-41 Permitting Status

The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council granted FAST-41 status to “Project Cubicle,” a Korean-led zinc refinery in Tennessee that, once permitted, is expected to produce eleven different critical minerals. The designation accelerates federal and state review and follows a memorandum of understanding between the council and the state of Tennessee. Permitting velocity has become the binding constraint on building out the domestic processing base, and tools like FAST-41 are how that constraint gets relaxed. If you are a company working within a key industry and struggling with permitting problems, look into the FAST-41 program.

Inside Trade

CPA: Polysilicon Section 232 Action Needed to Complete the Solar Supply Chain Case

The Coalition for a Prosperous America argued this week that preliminary antidumping duties in the latest solar trade case underscore the need for full supply chain action through a Section 232 investigation on polysilicon. CPA observes that tariffs on finished panels do not by themselves rebuild the upstream production base that domestic solar manufacturing requires. The protectionist case is most credible when it follows the supply chain all the way to feedstock.

Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA)

Wyoming Takes Over Federal Regulation of Rare Earth Processing Waste

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission finalized an updated agreement delegating to Wyoming the authority to regulate uranium and thorium waste from rare earth processing operations within the state, a step officials say will assist a planned Black Hills processing plant and the broader effort to stand up a domestic mineral processing industry. State-level regulatory capacity is one of the quiet enabling conditions for the American minerals base, and this transfer unlocks projects that have been waiting on regulatory clarity.

Inside Trade

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FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — Antidumping Duty Order: Department of Commerce — Float Glass Products from China move from preliminary to final AD order. Float glass joins the growing list of building-products categories where domestic capacity is now defended against subsidized Chinese supply. Read notice

• Notice — Final AD/CVD Determinations (Chassis Cluster): Department of Commerce — Final affirmative LTFV determinations on chassis and subassemblies from Mexico, Thailand, and Vietnam, with affirmative CVD determinations on Mexico and Thailand. The chassis case closes a major loophole in the heavy-duty supply chain that had migrated production from China across third countries. Mexico LTFV | Thailand LTFV | Vietnam LTFV | Mexico CVD | Thailand CVD

• Notice — Covered Merchandise Inquiry (Final): Department of Commerce — Seamless oil country tubular goods produced by Boly Pipe in Thailand using Chinese steel billets are found to fall within the existing China AD/CVD orders. A direct hit on the Thailand transshipment route that has been a persistent leakage point in the China steel case. Read notice

• Notice — New AD/CVD Investigation: International Trade Commission — Preliminary phase investigations open on Tris and Tris HCl from China, a specialty chemicals category with biopharma and life-sciences applications. The pharmaceutical supply chain case continues to expand from finished drugs into upstream chemical inputs. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

Sunset-review week: six ITC orders covering steel, mattresses, engines, shelving, and chassis all come up for review on Friday, with a fresh Commerce softwood lumber subsidy comment period opening behind them.

• May 1 (closes in 4 days) — International Trade Commission: Five-year sunset reviews on prestressed concrete steel wire strand, mattresses (Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam), small vertical shaft engines, boltless steel shelving, non-refillable steel cylinders, and chassis and subassemblies. Sunset reviews determine whether existing AD/CVD orders continue or sunset; domestic petitioners must file substantive responses or risk losing protections that took years to win. Wire strand | Mattresses | Engines | Shelving | Cylinders | Chassis

• May 26 (new, closes in 29 days) — Department of Commerce: Request for comment on subsidies, including stumpage subsidies, provided by countries exporting softwood lumber to the United States during July through December 2025. The biennial subsidy report is the empirical foundation for the next phase of the long-running softwood lumber case; U.S. lumber producers should file. Read notice

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• Apr 28 — House Ways and Means (Full Committee): Hearing with Health System CEOs. While health-focused, the committee’s recent work on pharmaceutical MFN deals and ongoing pharma reshoring discussion mean that drug supply chain and tariff questions are likely to surface in member questioning. Committee page

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8169 — Export Control Enforcement and Enhancement Act: Strengthens BIS authority and resources to enforce existing export controls on advanced technology. Ordered to be Reported 44-0 by House Foreign Affairs on Apr 22; the unanimous vote signals bipartisan agreement that the export control regime needs more enforcement bite, particularly toward China. View bill

• HR 8287 — Semiconductor Controls Effectiveness Act of 2026: Tightens semiconductor export controls and closes loopholes in current chip restrictions. Ordered to be Reported 43-0 on Apr 22, alongside HR 6322 (Stop Stealing our Chips Act, 43-1) and HR 8036 (Interagency Coordination in Export Controls Act, 25-19), as part of a coordinated House Foreign Affairs export-control package moving together. View bill

• HR 8337 — Buy American Seafood Act: Requires federal nutrition and feeding programs to source domestic seafood. Referred Apr 16 to Education and Workforce, Agriculture, Armed Services, and Transportation and Infrastructure. A direct application of Buy American principles to a sector where import dependence is structural and domestic producers face subsidized foreign supply. View bill

• HR 6446 — AD/CVD Evasion Procedures: Modifies procedures for investigating claims of evasion of antidumping and countervailing duty orders. Referred to Ways and Means; relevant given the chassis and OCTG circumvention determinations issued by Commerce this week. View bill

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TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 27, 1822, Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. As President from 1869 to 1877 he presided over the high-tariff Republican order built atop Lincoln’s Morrill Tariff, the policy framework that financed the post-Civil War industrial expansion of the United States. He was unjustly framed as “corrupt” by democrat party machines due to his willingness to quickly build out the transcontinental railway system, a key goal of the Lincoln administration before him. President Grant is hero, never let anyone say otherwise.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The USMCA was built on a shared commitment to keep forced-labor goods out of North American supply chains, and Canada is failing that commitment. Chinese forced labor goods continue to flood North American supply chains, and Ottawa has shown little appetite for the enforcement posture the agreement contemplates. When Washington moves to address the resulting circumvention, as it has through Section 232 derivatives and sustained pressure on Canadian practices, Prime Minister Carney's government responds by casting the United States as the aggressor and by letting provincial liquor bans sit as retaliatory theater. Deputy USTR Switzer was right to call this out as political malpractice this week. Meanwhile, the Justice Department's answer this week in Express Fasteners v. U.S. moves to defend the derivatives calculation methodology in federal court, protecting the enforcement architecture that keeps Xinjiang-tainted metal from laundering through third countries into American vehicles. The USMCA review is coming, and the administration is entering it with both the legal foundation and the moral high ground intact.

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TODAY’S STORIES

DOJ Moves to Uphold Section 232 Derivatives Calculation

The Justice Department filed its formal answer to Express Fasteners v. U.S., arguing that the importer challenging the administration’s method of calculating Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum derivatives invoked the wrong statute and that most of the suit’s claims fail as a result. The outcome matters for the integrity of the derivatives duty architecture, which extends Section 232 protection into downstream steel and aluminum products and closes an avenue for circumvention through processing abroad.

Department of Justice

Deputy USTR Switzer Draws Public Contrast Between Mexico and Canada Ahead of USMCA Review

Deputy USTR Switzer described Prime Minister Carney’s approach to trade talks as “political malpractice” and noted that Ambassador Greer met with President Sheinbaum in Mexico on Monday, with no equivalent meeting on the Canadian side. The rhetorical differentiation previews a USMCA review in which Washington intends to reward cooperative partners and maintain pressure on those still posturing through retaliation, including the provincial liquor bans Carney indicated could be lifted if talks progress.

Inside Trade

House Foreign Affairs Advances a Dozen Export-Control Bills

The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved more than a dozen export-control measures, including the Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware Act and the Semiconductor Controls Effectiveness Act. Several of the bills would authorize BIS to apply extraterritorial controls on allies that decline to align with U.S. restrictions, an approach that tightens the technology-denial perimeter around China and reduces the leverage of partner-country foot-dragging.

House Foreign Affairs Committee

House Energy and Commerce Eyes TSCA and RCRA Reform to Unlock Critical Mineral Production

Subcommittee Chair Gary Palmer opened a review of the Toxic Substances Control Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, arguing that the two statutes impose regulatory burdens whose imposition coincided with China’s ascent in critical mineral supply chains. Any reform that shortens permitting timelines and reduces duplicative compliance costs would support the build-out of domestic processing capacity, which is the structural prerequisite for reducing dependence on Chinese refined inputs.

Inside Trade

Trump Announces 17th MFN Pharmaceutical Agreement with Regeneron; Senate Democrats Seek Disclosure

The President announced a most-favored-nation pricing agreement with Regeneron, the seventeenth company-specific deal tied to the April 2 presidential proclamation that granted tariff relief in exchange for price commitments. Senate Finance ranking member Wyden and seventeen other Democrats demanded the full terms be disclosed, arguing Congress needs to evaluate the tradeoffs between tariff leverage and pricing concessions.

White House

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — Commerce: Final affirmative determinations of sales at less than fair value for certain chassis and subassemblies from Mexico, Vietnam, and Thailand, with companion CVD affirmative determinations for Mexico and Thailand. The parallel findings across three source countries close a circumvention pathway for trailer and container chassis that had been displacing domestic producers. Mexico AD | Vietnam AD | Thailand AD

• Notice — Commerce: Procedures for certain steel and aluminum producers committing to new U.S. production to obtain tariff adjustments under Proclamation 10984. The mechanism converts tariff leverage into an explicit incentive for greenfield domestic capacity in the medium- and heavy-duty vehicle and parts supply chain. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce: Antidumping duty order on float glass products from China. The order completes agency action on a product category with direct relevance to domestic construction and automotive glass supply chains. Read notice

• Notice — ITC: Preliminary-phase AD and CVD investigations instituted on Tris and Tris HCl from China. A successful petition would add another specialty chemical to the growing roster of AD/CVD-covered inputs and continues the pattern of moving enforcement into chemistries where domestic capacity is thin. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce: Request for comment on subsidies provided by countries exporting softwood lumber to the United States under the Softwood Lumber Act of 2008. The 180-day reporting cycle is a standing mechanism for documenting Canadian stumpage subsidies and feeds directly into Section 201 and AD/CVD postures on lumber. Read notice

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  ON THE HILL

  HEARINGS & MARKUPS

  • Apr 29 — House Natural Resources, Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee:“Powering the 21st Century with American Copper.” The hearing frames copper as foundational to grid, defense, and advanced manufacturing, and comes as the administration continues to weigh copper-specific trade measures. Committee page

  BILLS TO WATCH

  • HR 8169 — Export Control Enforcement and Enhancement Act: Strengthens BIS enforcement authority. Consistent with the American System posture of using export controls to preserve domestic technology advantages. Ordered reported by House Foreign Affairs, 44-0, April 22. View bill

  • HR 8287 — Semiconductor Controls Effectiveness Act of 2026: Tightens semiconductor-specific controls, a direct complement to the CHIPS production agenda. Ordered reported, 43-0, April 22. View bill

  • HR 6322 — Stop Stealing Our Chips Act: Raises the cost of diversion of U.S. semiconductor technology. An enforcement-side addition to the technology-denial perimeter. Ordered reported, 43-1, April 22. View bill

  • HR 5853: Raises civil penalties under the Export Control Reform Act. Meaningful deterrence requires penalties that scale with the commercial value of the restricted technology. Ordered reported, 44-0, April 22. View bill

  • HR 8036 — Interagency Coordination in Export Controls Act: Formalizes coordination across agencies on export-control decisions, a structural fix that should reduce the seams diversion operations exploit. Ordered reported, 25-19, April 22. View bill

  COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

  • W&M Chairman Smith: In his Wednesday opening statement at the Greer hearing, Chairman Smith framed the administration’s tariff strategy as a tool to break down foreign barriers to American producers. This framing overemphasizes the value of opening up export markets, and practically concedes that the apparent goal of tariffs is to negotiate and leverage for more free trade. This is absolutely wrong. While President Trump is earning Americans export markets and securing supply chains critical to national security that can not be sourced domestically, the goal of tariffs is the collection of revenue and tariffs. Mealy-mouthed sentiments that frame the Presidents tariff action as a move toward fairer free trade abandon the principles that Made America Great and that will Make America Great Again. Read statement

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  TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

  On April 24, 1824, James Madison wrote from Montpelier to Speaker Henry Clay thanking him for a copy of his "Speech in Support of an American System for the Protection of American Industry," the two-day oration delivered from the House floor less than a month earlier. Madison, still the living father of the Constitution, praised Clay's "ability & eloquence" even as he candidly dissented from the scope of the pending tariff bill. The exchange captures a founding-era truth worth recovering: the question was never whether the federal government could protect American industry, but how far and by what prudential measure.
  

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

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The administration made its manufacturing case on the record Tuesday, with the White House citing a three-month streak of expanding factory activity and USTR Greer testifying before House Ways and Means about a trade policy rebuilt around reciprocity and domestic production. Allied voices added texture: CPA on the strategic case for domestic solar manufacturing, and House China Committee pressure on Secretary Rubio to halt Dutch advanced-lithography sales to Beijing. What today showed is a policy framework reaching a coherent public presentation, with industrial data, congressional testimony, and enforcement priorities all pointing the same direction. The week’s Federal Register traffic reinforces that picture, including a same-day closing on producer-adjustment procedures under Proclamation 10984.

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TODAY’S STORIES

White House Points to Three Consecutive Months of Manufacturing Expansion

The White House on Tuesday released a summary of recent manufacturing indicators, noting that the Institute for Supply Management’s factory-activity index has now expanded for three consecutive months and sits at a four-year high. The administration framed the data as vindication of its tariff and industrial policy mix. For the American System tradition, the read is straightforward: protected domestic markets, paired with steady capital commitments, are the conditions under which factory activity sustains rather than flickers.

White House.

Greer Tells Ways and Means AGOA Reform Is “At the Top of Our Agenda”

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told House Ways and Means on Tuesday that reforming the African Growth and Opportunity Act is a top priority, telling Chair Jason Smith he is committed to working toward a multiyear extension that is “longer-lasting, more reciprocal.” The significance for American producers is that AGOA renewal becomes another venue where preferences can be calibrated toward trading partners that reciprocate market access, rather than simple duty-free entry without conditions. The administration is signaling that even long-standing preference programs will be rebuilt around the reciprocity principle.

Inside Trade.

CPA: Domestic Solar Manufacturing Is a Strategic Imperative

The Coalition for a Prosperous America argued Tuesday that the combination of artificial intelligence demand on the grid, geopolitical risk, and aging baseload capacity makes domestic solar manufacturing a strategic priority and not a green-energy question alone. CPA points to recent Suniva and Qcells investments as evidence that tariff protection has already returned production capacity to American soil. The framing is one the administration has implicitly accepted by treating solar cells as a Section 201 and 301 priority.

Coalition for a Prosperous America.

Moolenaar Presses Rubio to Block Dutch Lithography Sale to China

House Select Committee on the CCP Chair John Moolenaar wrote to Secretary of State Rubio this week urging Washington to press the Netherlands to block ASML’s planned sale of an advanced lithography system to China. Moolenaar argues the system would allow Chinese fabs to produce Nvidia H20-class chips, precisely the capability U.S. export controls were designed to deny. The request underscores how much of America’s semiconductor leverage sits with allied governments, and why diplomatic follow-through matters to the enforcement of U.S. controls.

Inside Trade.

Lighthizer Sketches a Post-WTO Trading Order

Robert Lighthizer, architect of the first Trump administration’s trade policy, published a new essay laying out his vision for the successor trading order, arguing that reciprocity, bilateralism, and balanced trade should replace the post-1995 consensus. The piece reads as doctrine more than prediction; Lighthizer has a history of converting such arguments into policy, and his public roadmap gives industry and Congress a framework within which to anticipate future administration moves.

Foreign Affairs

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FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice: Commerce — Procedures for steel and aluminum producers committing to new U.S. production to obtain tariff adjustments under Proclamation 10984 (medium- and heavy-duty vehicles and parts). Creates the formal channel through which domestic producers can capture tariff benefits tied to expanded U.S. capacity, converting tariff leverage into on-the-ground capital commitments. Read notice

• Notice: Commerce — Final results of the 2023-2024 administrative review of the AD order on activated carbon from China, finding continued sales below normal value. Activated carbon is a feedstock used across water treatment, pharmaceuticals, and defense applications; continued enforcement protects the small domestic producer base. Read notice

• Notice: Commerce — Final results of the 2023-2024 administrative review of the AD order on wooden cabinets and vanities from China, with Ancientree and KM determined to be selling below normal value. A sector where dumping margins have repeatedly surfaced, and where continued enforcement matters for surviving American cabinet fabricators. Read notice

• Notice: ITC — Proposed recommendations to conform the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule to WCO-adopted amendments scheduled to enter into force January 1, 2028. Mundane in presentation, consequential in practice: HTS classification shifts decide which tariff line a product hits, and the comment window is where domestic industry shapes that grid. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

A same-day deadline on Commerce’s producer-adjustment procedures under Proclamation 10984, with a pair of ITC five-year sunset reviews closing together next week.

• Apr 23 (closes today) — Commerce: Procedures for steel and aluminum producers seeking tariff adjustments under Proclamation 10984. Last chance for domestic steel and aluminum producers to shape the criteria by which new U.S. capacity commitments translate into tariff relief on heavy-duty vehicle inputs. Read notice

• May 01 (closes in 8 days) — ITC: Five-year sunset reviews on prestressed concrete steel wire strand from China and on mattresses from Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam. Sunset reviews determine whether existing AD/CVD orders stay in force; comments from domestic producers and trade associations are the record the Commission uses to find continuation or recurrence of material injury, and silence weakens the case for keeping the orders alive. Wire strand | Mattresses

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

No additional W&M or Senate Finance trade hearings are posted on the public calendar over the next two weeks; yesterday’s full-committee hearing with USTR Greer remains the anchor item of this window.

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8228: To nullify the Presidential Proclamation imposing a temporary import surcharge to address fundamental international payments problems. A direct legislative attempt to reverse a Trump administration tariff proclamation, cutting against the American System line by reasserting the pre-2025 default of open-market trade. Referred to House Ways and Means on April 9. View bill

• HR 8288: Strengthening Export Controls Compliance Act. Aligns with the administration’s direction on export enforcement, which Moolenaar’s letter to Rubio on Dutch lithography underscores is only as strong as the resources behind it. Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on April 15. View bill

• HR 4505: Export Controls Enforcement Act. A companion bill in the same enforcement architecture, giving BIS and interagency partners firmer tools against circumvention, an area where Commerce has been finding transshipment patterns regularly. Referred to House Foreign Affairs. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

• W&M Chair Jason Smith (R-MO): Opening statement at the April 22 hearing with USTR Greer, framing the administration’s trade agenda as a push to tear down barriers that disadvantage American producers and workers. Chair Smith’s framing gives Greer political cover on the committee of jurisdiction and signals that W&M leadership intends to move in step with USTR on the next round of deals. Read statement

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 23, 1985, the Coca-Cola Company unveiled “New Coke,” replacing a 99-year-old formula before consumer backlash forced a return to the original within three months, a reminder that a domestic brand’s value is largely the trust built with American consumers over generations.

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

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The USMCA review has a start date. Greer and Mexican Economy Secretary Ebrard announced Monday that the first official negotiating round will convene in late May, capping a weekend in which Commerce Secretary Lutnick described the current agreement as a “bad deal” and Prime Minister Carney characterized close ties to the United States as a weakness Canada must correct. Alongside that opening salvo, today brings a U.S.-Chile critical minerals memorandum, a Commerce circumvention finding against Chinese aluminum containers routed through Thailand and Vietnam, and an Oklahoma company putting heavy rare earth capacity outside China into American hands. The throughline is a trade policy running on bilateral, sectoral, and enforcement channels at once, each one widening the domestic industrial base or closing a route around it.

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TODAY’S STORIES

U.S. and Mexico Open First Official USMCA Negotiating Round in Late May

USTR Greer and Mexican Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard issued a joint statement Monday setting late May for the first formal USMCA review round, with technical teams this week advancing work on economic security and complementary supply chains. The announcement lands days after Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s public assessment that the current agreement is underperforming and Prime Minister Carney’s Sunday video address describing Canadian reliance on the United States as a vulnerability. For American industrial policy, the bilateral Mexico track is the most direct route to tightening rules of origin, closing the kind of cross-border content loopholes Commerce is already finding in aluminum, and anchoring North American production to U.S. standards rather than arbitrage.

United States Trade Representative Press

CPA Files Comments with USITC on China PNTR Phase-Out

The Coalition for a Prosperous America submitted formal comments Monday to the ITC’s congressionally mandated investigation into the prospective economic effects of revoking China’s permanent normal trade relations. The filing enters the record as stakeholders debate phase-out design, transition timelines, and sector-by-sector treatment of a revocation. CPA’s submission is an important marker in what is now the most consequential architectural question before Washington trade policy, and its content will shape how the protectionist case for revocation reads inside the Commission’s analytical work.

Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) — allied org release

U.S. and Chile Sign Critical Minerals Memorandum of Understanding

Chilean Under Secretary of International Economic Relations Paula Estévez and Under Secretary of Mining Álvaro González signed a critical minerals cooperation MOU Monday with U.S. Ambassador Brandon Judd, according to the Chilean foreign ministry. Chile holds globally significant lithium and copper reserves, and the agreement extends the administration’s pattern of locking in bilateral minerals access with resource-holding partners outside the Chinese supply orbit. The practical value will turn on whether the MOU generates offtake, capital, and downstream refining capacity inside the United States rather than merely rerouting export flows.

Inside Trade

Commerce Finds Chinese Aluminum Containers Circumventing Duty Orders Through Thailand and Vietnam

Commerce issued preliminary affirmative circumvention determinations Monday finding that disposable aluminum containers, pans, trays, and lids completed in Thailand and Vietnam with Chinese aluminum foil are circumventing the existing AD/CVD orders on aluminum containers from China. Parallel Thailand and Vietnam findings were published on the same day. Circumvention determinations close the transshipment routes that have historically blunted AD/CVD coverage, and this one targets a consumer-goods category where domestic producers have been squeezed for years; interested parties can file comments before the final determination.

Federal Register — U.S. Department of Commerce

USA Rare Earth Acquires Serra Verde, a Major Brazilian Heavy Rare Earth Producer

Oklahoma-based USA Rare Earth announced Monday the acquisition of Serra Verde Group, owner of one of the few significant heavy rare earth concentrations outside China, along with a 15-year offtake agreement that sets price floors on the elements used in neodymium magnets. The deal puts material non-Chinese heavy rare earth capacity under American ownership and secures long-term pricing stability for magnet supply chains. It also illustrates how private capital is now moving to internalize the mine-to-magnet chain that public investment alone has struggled to rebuild.

Inside Trade

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice: International Trade Commission — Recommendations to the President on Harmonized Tariff Schedule modifications conforming to the World Customs Organization amendments entering force January 1, 2028. Schedule updates of this kind are the plumbing of classification and duty incidence for domestic importers and producers, and they warrant industry attention before the comment window closes. Read notice

• Notice: ITC — Scheduling of expedited five-year reviews of the AD and CVD orders on passenger vehicle and light truck tires from China. The expedited track signals limited domestic opposition to continuation, but the orders are consequential coverage for the tire industry and lapses would reopen a large import lane. Read notice

• Notice: ITC — Scheduling of expedited five-year reviews of the AD and CVD orders on wood mouldings and millwork from China. Continuation of these orders underpins the competitive position of remaining domestic millwork producers against low-priced Chinese supply. Read notice

• Notice: ITC — Scheduling of the final phase of the AD and CVD investigations on oleoresin paprika from India. A final affirmative injury determination would anchor new duty coverage in a niche but import-exposed ingredient category. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

A sunset-review Docket; three ITC five-year reviews on Chinese AD/CVD orders all close May 1, and domestic producers in each category face the same decision about filing for continuation.

• May 01 (closes in 10 days) — ITC: Institution of five-year sunset reviews of AD/CVD orders on prestressed concrete steel wire strand from China; mattresses from Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam; and small vertical shaft engines from China. A sunset review decides whether existing duty orders remain in place; domestic producers and trade associations must file substantive response submissions to keep orders in force, and a failure to do so can lead the Commission to conclude injury would not recur, letting the orders lapse and reopening U.S. market share to subsidized and dumped imports. Wire strand | Mattresses | Small vertical shaft engines

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• Apr 22 — House Ways and Means (Full Committee): Hearing on the Trump Administration’s 2026 Trade Policy Agenda with USTR Jamieson Greer. Greer’s annual testimony is the single best window into how the administration intends to sequence USMCA, China PNTR, Section 301, and the pending IEEPA follow-on authorities, and members on both sides will press him on congressional consultation in the USMCA review now that the first round has been set for late May. Committee page

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8287 — Semiconductor Controls Effectiveness Act of 2026: A bill to tighten BIS semiconductor export controls and close enforcement gaps identified by the House Select Committee on China. Advances the American System interest in preserving the domestic semiconductor manufacturing edge that CHIPS Act investments are still building out. Referred to House Foreign Affairs on April 15. View bill

• HR 8288 — Strengthening Export Controls Compliance Act: Companion measure sharpening compliance obligations for exporters of controlled items. Tighter compliance architecture supports the broader export-control regime that keeps frontier manufacturing capacity inside the United States and allied economies. Referred to House Foreign Affairs on April 15. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

No substantive trade-related Ways and Means statements in the last 72 hours; expect that to change after Wednesday’s Greer hearing.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 21, 1789, John Adams was sworn in as the nation’s first Vice President and took his seat as President of the Senate. Over the months that followed, he presided over debate on the Tariff Act of 1789, the federal government’s inaugural revenue statute and the First Congress’s foundational statement on American industrial policy. James Madison’s proposed schedule, enacted that July, drew explicit distinctions between revenue duties and duties designed to encourage domestic manufactures in their infancy. The precedent set in those first months established that tariffs were a legitimate constitutional tool for the development of American industry, a premise the Clay tradition would later build into the full architecture of the American System.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

USTR Greer returns from Mexico City this week and heads directly to Capitol Hill for his annual testimony before the trade committees, with USMCA rules of origin revisions now firmly on the agenda. The ITC’s congressionally mandated study of China PNTR revocation is drawing detailed stakeholder input on phase-out mechanics, a sign that Congress is preparing to legislate on the most consequential piece of the China trade relationship. Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking a 290-agent expansion of export enforcement, and the State Department is formally pressing a “trade over aid” reorientation at the United Nations. Today is an exciting day to be a tariff man!

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TODAY’S STORIES

Greer Heads to Ways and Means and Finance After Mexico USMCA Talks

Fresh from Mexico City discussions on revisions to USMCA rules of origin, USTR Jamieson Greer will testify before House Ways and Means on Wednesday and is expected before Senate Finance later in the week. The rules of origin question is the central leverage point in next year’s joint review: tightening regional value content thresholds is the practical mechanism by which USMCA can be made to serve North American industrial build-out rather than assembly operations that route Asian content through Mexico.

Source: House Ways and Means

ITC China PNTR Probe Draws Stakeholder Comment on Phase-Out Design

The International Trade Commission’s prospective economic analysis of revoking China’s permanent normal trade relations, mandated by Congress, is generating detailed stakeholder submissions on whether and how to stage a tariff transition. A PNTR revocation would restore Column 2 duty rates on Chinese imports and hand Congress a durable, statutory instrument for managing the China trade relationship. The design of any phase-out will determine whether that instrument arrives intact or arrives hollowed out by carve-outs.

Source: International Trade Commission

BIS Seeks Funds for 290 More Export Enforcement Agents

Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security has requested FY2027 funding for 290 additional export enforcement special agents inside the United States plus 40 more export control officers abroad, part of what BIS describes as a structural overhaul of enforcement. Export controls are only as strong as the agents empowered to enforce them, and the requested build-out signals that enforcement capacity has become the binding constraint on technology decoupling.

Source: Commerce Department

State Department Presses “Trade Over Aid” Reorientation at the UN

Secretary Rubio has directed U.S. diplomats to push foreign governments to support a “trade over aid” declaration at the United Nations, asking partner countries to undertake reforms that attract investment and facilitate commerce. The frame moves U.S. engagement with the developing world away from transfer programs and toward commercial relationships.

Source: State Department

Coal Ash Emerges as Potential Domestic Source for Critical Minerals

Industry groups and the administration are examining methods to recover critical minerals and rare earth elements from coal combustion residuals, with DOE national laboratories already developing extraction technologies. The approach offers a domestic, waste-stream feedstock that sidesteps offshore mining and refining dependencies, though the existing EPA coal ash disposal rule will need to be reconciled with a recovery framework. Domestic resource development is the prerequisite to a rare earths supply chain that does not run through Beijing.

Source: Inside U.S. Trade

FEDERAL REGISTER WATCH

• Notice — Commerce/ITA: Preliminary affirmative determination that disposable aluminum containers finished in Thailand using Chinese aluminum foil are circumventing the China AD/CVD orders. A workmanlike closing of a well-trodden transshipment pathway; the parallel Vietnam determination below confirms the same pattern. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce/ITA: Parallel preliminary affirmative circumvention finding for the same aluminum containers finished in Vietnam with Chinese foil. Taken with the Thailand determination, Commerce is shutting two of the preferred third-country routes on the same day. Read notice

• Notice — ITC: Final phase of AD/CVD investigations on oleoresin paprika from India, a natural food colorant used across processed food manufacturing. A smaller product, but the final-phase staging is where domestic producers make or lose the injury case. Read notice

• Notice — Commerce/ITA: Final CVD administrative review results on phosphate fertilizers from Russia (JSC Apatit), confirming countervailable subsidies during the 2023 period of review. Sustains duties on a competitor to domestic fertilizer producers at a moment when the administration is financing U.S. fertilizer capacity from tariff revenue. Read notice

• Notice — ITC: Section 337 determination in the crafting machines investigation, with remedy, bonding, and public-interest comment requested. Section 337 exclusion orders remain an underused instrument of protection for domestic producers holding the IP at stake. Read notice

ON THE DOCKET

A quiet comment calendar; three ITC five-year sunset reviews instituted April 1 all close together on May 1, and nothing else imminent.

• May 01 (closes in 11 days) — ITC: Five-year sunset reviews on prestressed concrete steel wire strand from China, mattresses from Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Serbia, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam, and small vertical shaft engines from China. Sunset reviews determine whether existing AD/CVD orders continue for another five-year term; domestic producers and trade associations that rely on these orders need to make the injury case on the record or risk termination. Wire strand | Mattresses | Small engines

ON THE HILL

HEARINGS & MARKUPS

• Apr 22 — House Ways and Means: Full Committee Hearing on the Trump Administration’s 2026 Trade Policy Agenda with USTR Jamieson Greer. The headline trade event of the week; expect detailed exchanges on USMCA rules of origin, Section 232 and 301 posture, China PNTR, and the IEEPA litigation aftermath. Committee page

BILLS TO WATCH

• HR 8339: Enhancements to drug manufacturing reporting under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Ties directly into the generic drug supply chain push and the CPA-applauded FDA proposal; builds the information base for future domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing policy. Referred to House Energy and Commerce. View bill

• HRES 1182: Resolution recognizing rural communities as major suppliers of U.S. energy, food production, and manufacturing capacity. Hortatory rather than operative, but the language reflects the coalition House Republicans are building around reindustrialization and rural economic development. Referred to House Energy and Commerce. View bill

COMMITTEE STATEMENTS

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

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 20, 1914, the Ludlow Massacre in southern Colorado marked one of the darkest episodes in American labor history, as Colorado National Guard troops and company guards attacked a tent colony of striking coal miners and their families. The event helped catalyze the federal labor reforms of the Progressive and New Deal eras that built the wage, hours, and workplace safety standards American workers operate under today. Those standards form part of what domestic producers compete under, and a coherent tariff and industrial policy is the necessary complement to preserving them.

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THE BOTTOM LINE

Washington is moving on multiple fronts to translate tariff policy into tangible domestic capacity. Agriculture Secretary Rollins signaled that tariff revenue itself will fund a new fertilizer production initiative: a move that cuts against the old fiction that protection pits farmers against manufacturers. USTR Greer heads to Mexico next week to press on USMCA rules of origin, the Senate cleared a path for Minnesota mineral development, and the State Department launched a Philippines industrial corridor designed to diversify supply chains away from Chinese concentration. The common thread: bilateral leverage and domestic investment are displacing multilateral passivity as the operating model for U.S. economic policy.

TODAY’S STORIES

Rollins: Tariff Revenue to Fund U.S. Fertilizer Production Initiative

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told House appropriators that the administration is developing a plan, potentially announced next week, to direct tariff revenue toward bolstering domestic fertilizer production. The proposal quietly revives one of the oldest and most neglected truths of American political economy: the harmony of interests between the farmer and the manufacturer.

Henry C. Carey, Lincoln’s chief economic advisor, spent decades arguing the point. Southern cotton and tobacco planters, chained to the British export market, were not practicing agriculture so much as mining their soil — stripping nutrients and shipping them abroad with every bale and hogshead, never to be returned. Carey saw, drawing on the revolutionary soil chemistry of Justus von Liebig, that the farmer’s long-term interest was a domestic manufacturing base close at hand: one that returned nutrients to the land through proximate markets, industrial byproducts, and eventually a native fertilizer industry. Free trade, in Carey’s telling, was not the farmer’s friend but his slow ruin.

That framework is not a historical curiosity. When Lincoln signed the Organic Act creating the Department of Agriculture in May 1862, the protectionist Republican coalition built USDA explicitly to bring Liebig’s science to American soil — the first commissioner, Isaac Newton, was a Pennsylvania farmer from Carey’s own orbit, and the department’s first scientist, Charles Wetherill, had trained in Liebig’s laboratory. Scientific agriculture and protective tariffs were twin projects of the same political coalition, aimed at the same problem: a continent whose soils were being exhausted to pay for British manufactures.

Rollins’s proposal sits in this lineage. Fertilizer is a critical agricultural input where U.S. producers face significant import dependence, and using tariff proceeds to build out domestic capacity is a textbook application of the protective principle — the tariff funding the very industry it shields, and the manufacturer serving the farmer rather than competing with him.

Agri-Pulse

Greer Heads to Mexico Next Week for USMCA Rules of Origin Talks

USTR Jamieson Greer confirmed during his appropriations testimony that he will travel to Mexico next week to continue bilateral discussions with Economy Secretary Ebrard, with rules of origin as the central focus. Tightening origin requirements is the most direct mechanism for ensuring that USMCA preferences flow to producers who actually manufacture in North America rather than those routing goods through the region to claim preferential treatment. The visit follows bipartisan Senate pressure last week urging Greer to preserve USMCA’s framework while consulting Congress on the review process.

Inside Trade

U.S. and Philippines to Establish Industrial Hub in Luzon Economic Corridor

Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg announced a 4,000-acre “economic security zone” in the Philippines, the first in a planned network of industrial hubs designed to build alternative supply chains, particularly for critical minerals, as part of his “Pax-Silicon” initiative. The corridor model reflects a bilateral, investment-led approach to supply chain security: rather than relying on multilateral frameworks to address concentration risk.

State Department

CPA Applauds FDA Proposal to Strengthen U.S. Generic Drug Manufacturing

The Coalition for a Prosperous America endorsed a new FDA proposal aimed at strengthening domestic generic drug manufacturing and supply chain integrity. Pharmaceutical production is among the sectors where import dependence poses both economic and national security concerns; the U.S. currently relies on overseas suppliers, particularly in Asia, for a substantial share of generic drug inputs. FDA action on manufacturing standards creates conditions that favor producers operating under U.S. quality and labor requirements.

Coalition for a Prosperous America (allied organization)

Senate Votes to Nullify Minnesota Land Withdrawal, Opening Acreage for Mineral Development

The Senate voted 50-49 to nullify a 2023 order that had withdrawn over 225,000 acres in Minnesota’s Superior National Forest from mineral development for 20 years. The resolution, advanced under the Congressional Review Act, opens land that contains significant deposits of copper, nickel, and cobalt. Domestic access to these minerals is a prerequisite for reducing reliance on foreign, and particularly Chinese-dominated, supply chains for inputs essential to manufacturing and defense.

Inside Trade

House China Panel: AI Export Control Gaps Leave Supply Chain Vulnerabilities

A new report from the House Select Committee on the CCP argues that U.S. export controls on advanced chips and AI capabilities are narrower in practice than commonly understood, with significant gaps that allow continued access by Chinese chipmakers. The report calls for closing loopholes in restrictions on chipmaking equipment and frontier AI tools. For industrial policy, the finding underscores that tariffs and trade restrictions require precise administration.

House Select Committee on the CCP

ON THE RADAR

• House E&C subcommittee will hold a hearing next week on how the Clean Air Act and other environmental statutes affect critical mineral supply chains and domestic manufacturing capacity.

• CRS published an updated brief on U.S.-Mexico trade relations, providing congressional background ahead of next week’s Greer visit and the broader USMCA review timeline.

• Greer told appropriators USTR needs a $7 million budget increase to enforce commitments from recent bilateral deals, including non-discrimination protections for U.S. tech firms and China’s agricultural purchasing pledges.

• Federal Reserve research circulating on Reddit suggests inflation would have returned to pre-pandemic levels without tariffs; the study is worth tracking as a data point that will feature in upcoming congressional testimony debates.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 17, 1790, Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia at the age of 84. Among his many contributions, Franklin was an early advocate for domestic manufacturing, arguing in his later years that American economic independence required productive capacity at home, not just political separation from Britain. His thinking laid groundwork for the protectionist tradition that Alexander Hamilton would formalize months later in his Report on Manufactures.

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

THE BOTTOM LINE

The USMCA review is becoming the central trade policy event of the spring. More than forty senators have now weighed in to preserve the agreement, USTR Greer faces back-to-back congressional testimony next week, and automakers in Mexico are already seeking government support to manage tariff exposure under the pact’s rules of origin. Meanwhile, the IMF’s new World Economic Outlook quantifies what protectionists have long argued: rebuilding domestic critical mineral capacity requires sustained public investment, and that investment is worth making.

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TODAY’S STORIES

Bipartisan Senate Coalition Urges Greer to Preserve USMCA, Consult Congress on Review

Forty-one senators, including the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to USTR Greer calling for preservation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and formal congressional consultation ahead of the pact’s July 2026 joint review. The letter emphasizes agricultural market access gains under the agreement. The scale of the coalition, spanning both parties and key committee leadership, signals that any effort to substantially renegotiate USMCA will face serious institutional resistance on Capitol Hill.

Inside Trade

IMF: U.S. Rare Earth Self-Sufficiency Would Require Substantial Government Investment

The International Monetary Fund’s annual World Economic Outlook estimates that the U.S. government would need to cover more than three-quarters of investment costs to achieve even 25 percent self-sufficiency in rare earth processing by 2035. The finding underscores the depth of the capacity gap created by decades of import dependence. From a protectionist standpoint, the IMF’s numbers are an argument for the policy, not against it: strategic industries that require public investment to establish are precisely the industries a sovereign nation cannot afford to leave in foreign hands.

Albert Gallatin (who was a Jeffersonian) made precisely this point in his 1808 Report on Roads and Canals, arguing that internal improvements of national scope often could not attract adequate private capital, even if they were highly beneficial to the country overall. The returns were too diffuse, the timelines too long, and the coordination problems too severe for fragmented private actors to solve. Only the federal government possessed the resources and unified perspective to undertake them. The logic applies directly to rare earth processing today: a supply chain serving dispersed downstream industries, with payoffs measured in decades and strategic value that private balance sheets cannot capture, is exactly the kind of project Gallatin identified as requiring public investment to exist at all.

International Monetary Fund

House Bill Would Extend IRA Manufacturing Tax Credit to Copper, Expand to Extraction

Representatives Schweikert (R-AZ) and Carey (R-OH) introduced legislation to make copper eligible for the Section 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit and to extend the credit’s coverage to ore extraction. Copper is essential for electrification, defense systems, and grid infrastructure, and domestic production has been constrained by permitting delays and cost competition from lower-standard producers abroad. The bill pairs tariff protection with a production incentive, the combination that historically produces the strongest results for domestic capacity expansion.

Inside Trade

IPEF Labor Body Remains Active, Developing Facility-Level Violation Reporting Tool

The labor rights body established under the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework continues to operate and is developing a mechanism for reporting facility-specific labor violations, according to the Philippine government. The tool would allow partner countries to flag specific worksites where labor standards are not being met. For trade enforcement, facility-level reporting is far more actionable than country-level assessments, and it could provide the evidentiary basis for targeted trade actions under Section 301 or other authorities.

Inside Trade

Nissan Seeks Mexican Government Support to Offset USMCA Tariff Exposure

Nissan is requesting assistance from the Mexican government to manage the tariff costs it faces under USMCA’s rules of origin requirements. The request illustrates how the agreement’s regional content rules are functioning as intended: manufacturers that source components from outside North America face higher costs, creating an incentive to shift production and sourcing into the trade bloc. In response to President Trumps tariffs, Mexico Business News reports that automakers are accelerating localization strategies in North America. Nissan is also restructuring its global operations.The fact that automakers are adjusting their supply chain strategies in response to these rules is evidence that tariffs are working.

Mexico Business News

Greer to Testify Before Ways and Means and Finance Next Week

USTR Greer is scheduled to appear before the House Ways and Means Committee on April 22 and the Senate Finance Committee on April 23. The hearings will cover the administration’s trade policy agenda, the $95 million FY2027 budget request, and the expanding Section 301 docket. With the USMCA review approaching and Section 301 investigations underway on multiple fronts, these will be the most consequential USTR hearings of the year so far.

House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee

ON THE RADAR

• University of Utah plans a critical minerals research institute as the state positions itself as a hub for mining and processing, with a focus on workforce development and domestic supply chain research.

• National Taxpayers Union prepared questions for Greer ahead of his House testimony, focusing on USTR’s budget growth and the legal basis for its expanding trade remedy portfolio.

• WTO members propose increased AI use in intellectual property offices, with the U.S. among more than 35 countries endorsing digitalization to strengthen IP protections and enforcement.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 16, 1789, George Washington departed Mount Vernon for New York City to assume the presidency. One of the first acts of his new government would be the Tariff of 1789, the second bill ever signed into law by Congress, establishing the principle that the young republic’s commercial policy would serve the development of domestic industry.

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

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THE BOTTOM LINE

The wins are stacking up. Suniva is expanding U.S. solar cell manufacturing, DOE is funding five gallium extraction projects to rebuild a capability abandoned in the 1980s, and the administration continues to move on energy, critical minerals, and permitting.

Switzerland, Cambodia, and the Philippines are objecting to new Section 301 probes, IEEPA plaintiffs are lining up to challenge any successor duties, and Beijing has now published regulations to punish firms that comply with U.S. export controls and congressional subpoenas. China’s move reveals the regime for what it is: a Communist government that suppresses its own citizens’ purchasing power to keep the world dependent on Chinese manufacturing and the CCP behind it. The opposition is loud because the strategy is succeeding.

TODAY’S STORIES

Trading Partners File Early Objections to New Section 301 Probes

Switzerland, Cambodia, and the Philippines are among the first countries to push back against USTR’s Section 301 investigations into overcapacity and forced labor, opened last month as part of the administration’s broader effort to rebuild tariff authority after the Supreme Court’s IEEPA ruling. The early responses signal that these investigations will be contested at every stage, which strengthens the case for USTR to build thorough evidentiary records. Well-documented Section 301 actions, grounded in specific findings on industrial subsidies and labor practices, are more durable than emergency authorities precisely because they require this kind of adversarial process.

Inside Trade

IEEPA Plaintiff Warns That Section 301 Tariffs Replicating IEEPA Duties Would Be Illegal

The toy importer that successfully challenged the IEEPA tariffs at the Supreme Court is arguing that using Section 301 to reimpose equivalent duties would constitute a “sham” action. The legal theory is that tariffs struck down under one authority cannot simply be replicated under another without an independent substantive basis. This makes the quality of USTR’s Section 301 investigations all the more consequential: the cases will need to stand on their own factual records, not merely reproduce the rate structure of the overturned IEEPA duties.

Inside Trade

CPA Applauds Suniva’s U.S. Solar Cell Manufacturing Investment

The Coalition for a Prosperous America highlighted Suniva’s decision to expand domestic solar cell manufacturing as further evidence that trade protection is driving capital investment in American production capacity. Solar manufacturing has been a focal point of the tariff debate for years, and Suniva’s commitment follows the Section 201 safeguard tariffs that created the conditions for domestic producers to compete. The investment reinforces the core protectionist argument: when the playing field is leveled through tariff policy, capital flows toward domestic capacity rather than away from it.

Coalition for a Prosperous America

CPA Economist Debates Tax Foundation on Tariff Burden at Ohio State

CPA Senior Economist Mihir Torsekar debated the Tax Foundation on whether tariffs constitute a net burden on the American economy. The Tax Foundation’s framing treats tariffs as a consumer tax, while CPA’s analysis accounts for the domestic production, employment, and supply chain development that tariff protection enables. These debates are valuable because they force the free-trade position to confront the industrial outcomes that tariff skeptics tend to omit from their models.

Coalition for a Prosperous America

DOE Selects Five Gallium Extraction Projects to Rebuild Domestic Supply

The Energy Department identified five projects for up to $5.4 million in funding under its TRACE-Ga initiative to establish domestic gallium production, a capability the United States has not maintained since the 1980s. Gallium is essential for semiconductors, LEDs, and defense electronics, and China currently controls the vast majority of global supply. The selections are modest in scale but represent the beginning of a deliberate effort to rebuild extraction and processing capacity that was allowed to atrophy during decades of import dependence.

Department of Energy

China Issues Regulations Targeting Western Extraterritorial Jurisdiction

Beijing published new regulations creating a framework to retaliate against companies that comply with U.S. export controls, trade remedy proceedings, and congressional subpoenas. The regulations formalize a compliance dilemma for firms operating in both markets: follow American law and risk losing access to China, or accommodate Beijing and risk U.S. enforcement. For domestic manufacturers, this dynamic reinforces the value of building supply chains that do not depend on Chinese market access as a condition of viability.

Inside Trade

CSIS Analyst Argues Against Reopening USMCA Digital Trade Chapter

CSIS fellow Diego Marroquin Bitar urged the three USMCA partners to keep the agreement’s digital trade chapter off the table during the upcoming trilateral review, recommending instead that digital issues be positioned as an early deliverable. The concern is that reopening the chapter could introduce new regulatory obligations or weaken existing commitments on data flows and digital services. For the review process more broadly, the question of which chapters to reopen and which to preserve will shape the scope and complexity of the negotiations ahead.

Inside Trade

ON THE RADAR

• CBC profiles U.S. companies benefiting from tariff policy, featuring manufacturers that have expanded domestic production and hiring since Liberation Day.

• Senate faces a deadline on the Minnesota land withdrawal resolution, with only days remaining to reverse a Biden-era order that banned mining in a copper-rich region of the state.

• Mining companies are “quietly concerned” about Project Vault, according to the Financial Times, with some producers worried that a large federal stockpile could depress market prices for critical minerals.

• NTU prepares questions for Greer’s House testimony Thursday, focusing on USTR’s $95 million FY2027 budget request and the agency’s expanding Section 301 docket.

TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY

On April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln died from an assassin’s bullet. Lincoln was among the most committed protectionists ever to hold the presidency; he signed the Morrill Tariff, which raised duties to fund domestic industry and infrastructure, and his Republican Party made high tariffs a cornerstone of the economic program that powered American industrialization for the next half century.

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