Tariff Times Daily: CPA Makes the Case for Specific Tariffs
USTR's $95M ask, IEEPA and Iran, one year of Liberation Day, and the case for specific tariffs
THE BOTTOM LINE
Budget season is confirming what the past year’s tariff record has suggested: the administration intends to institutionalize trade enforcement, not treat it as a temporary measure. USTR’s request for $95 million in FY2027 and the Energy Department’s push to expand critical minerals funding reflect a government that is building capacity for the long term. CPA research released this week finds that one year of broad tariff protection has produced measurable manufacturing recovery, and that the design of tariff instruments matters as much as their scale. Specific tariffs rather than Ad Valorem make it far more difficult for cheaters to dodge duties. Overall, the policy frame for the Presidents Trade Agenda is settling into something more durable than just a negotiating tactic, but is instead forming a serious, long-term plan for reindustrialization.
TODAY’S STORIES
USTR Requests $95 Million for FY2027, Greer to Testify Next Week
The Trump administration is seeking $95 million for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in fiscal year 2027, a $7 million increase over its FY2026 request, with additional resources directed toward the Trade Enforcement Trust Fund. Congress funded USTR below request last cycle, approving $65 million against a $72 million ask, though it did meet the $23 million enforcement fund target. Greer will defend the FY2027 proposal before Congress next week, and the hearing will offer a useful window into which enforcement priorities the administration considers most pressing.
Inside Trade
Hassett: IEEPA Authority Remains Available for Iran-Linked Tariff Actions
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Thursday that the administration could impose 50 percent tariffs on countries supplying weapons to Iran under IEEPA, even following the Supreme Court’s February ruling limiting the statute’s application to broad tariff levies. The administration’s position is that conditions of active conflict create a distinct legal context that the Court’s ruling does not foreclose. The claim will draw scrutiny, but it signals that the executive branch views its tariff authority as deep and varied across statutory bases, not narrowed to a single tool by the February decision. Important to recognize that China is the primary country of note supplying weapons to Iran.
Inside Trade
CPA: Specific Tariffs Outperform Ad Valorem Rates in Steel Pipe Case
A new Coalition for a Prosperous America analysis uses large-diameter steel pipe as a case study in tariff design, arguing that specific tariffs, set per unit or per ton, provide more durable protection than ad valorem rates, which erode when import prices decline. The piece shows how foreign producers can undercut the effective protection of an ad valorem rate by lowering their export price, while a specific tariff maintains its floor regardless of price manipulation. For policymakers designing the next generation of trade instruments, this distinction has real consequences for whether domestic producers can sustain competitive footing over time.
Coalition for a Prosperous America
One Year of Liberation Day Tariffs Shows Manufacturing Recovery
CPA’s Liberation Day anniversary assessment finds measurable signs of domestic manufacturing recovery, citing investment commitments, production increases, and supply chain reshoring across multiple sectors. The organization notes that the full structural effects of a sustained tariff regime take years to appear, and that the first year should be read as the beginning of a longer arc. Writing separately in the Financial Times, Oren Cass rates the Liberation Day strategy a “remarkable success,” describing it as a turning point in the decades-long drift toward lower barriers and deeper external dependence.
Coalition for a Prosperous America; Financial Times (Oren Cass)
Energy Department Proposes Critical Minerals Budget Increase for FY2027
The Energy Department’s Critical Minerals and Energy Innovations office is requesting a substantial funding increase for mineral-specific programs in fiscal year 2027, paired with proposed cuts to renewable energy activities that would leave the department’s overall budget well below prior-year levels. The proposed reorientation reflects a priority shift toward supply chain security and domestic processing capacity for minerals essential to defense, electronics, and industrial production. Missouri announced separately this week that its Department of Natural Resources is soliciting contractors to develop a statewide critical minerals plan, with coordination across state, federal, and private-sector participants; the move is one of the clearer signs that state governments are beginning to treat minerals policy as a distinct economic development priority.
Inside Trade
WTO Sets First Post-MC14 General Council Meeting for May 6-7
The WTO has scheduled its first General Council meeting since the Yaoundé ministerial for May 6-7, where members will reconsider the lapsed e-commerce tariff moratorium. Turkey has signaled it could accept a long-term extension if the scope of the ban is clarified, while Brazil and Turkey’s objections at MC14 led to its initial lapse. The May meeting will be an early test of whether the post-ministerial organization can reach consensus on contained issues, or whether the bilateral and sectoral channels that have defined U.S. trade engagement will continue to set the practical frame for how trade governance actually functions.
Inside Trade
ON THE RADAR
Commerce will publish tomorrow its call for proposals under the American AI Exports Program, a central element of the administration’s strategy to extend U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence infrastructure to allied markets.
New Mexico Democrats are formally objecting to the BLM’s opening of Upper Pecos Watershed lands to new mining operations, setting up a state-federal friction point that could complicate the administration’s critical minerals permitting agenda.
The Section 122 major questions litigation and the CIT’s flagship tariff refund case are both advancing; Hassett’s IEEPA theory for Iran-linked tariffs will add another layer to an already active legal landscape for executive tariff authority.
WSJ published a video review of whether Liberation Day tariffs have delivered on their goals; useful data points on trade flows and investment shifts for readers tracking the empirical record.
TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY
On April 10, 1816, Congress chartered the Second Bank of the United States, a cornerstone of Henry Clay’s American System alongside protective tariffs and federally funded internal improvements. The Bank’s mandate to stabilize domestic currency and extend credit to American industry rested on the same premise that animated Clay’s entire program: that federal institution-building, not market drift, was the proper instrument for developing the home economy.
Tariff Times Daily is published by the American Protective Tariff League.
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