Tariff Times Daily: Domestic Market Rebounds as China Imports Plummet
China's Import Share Nears 2000 Levels but Tariff Architecture Remains Under Siege
THE BOTTOM LINE
The administration’s tariff program is producing measurable structural results: China’s share of U.S. imports has fallen to 9.3 percent, approaching pre-WTO-accession levels, and new CPA data document domestic manufacturers recovering market share under Section 232. However, on the dark side, IEEPA refunds are set to have a system for disbursement next week. Meanwhile, DOJ will defend executive de minimis powers and a CIT panel will work through Section 122 requirements. The one development deserving close attention from domestic producers: Commerce’s preliminary finding that AD/CVD rates on Canadian softwood lumber could fall by roughly 10 percentage points, a reduction that warrants scrutiny before it is finalized. Today’s news reveals that while the Administration is making substantial progress, many of the essential achievements of the President Trade agenda are still under attack.
TODAY’S STORIES
CPA: Domestic Market Share Rebounds in 2025 as Section 232 Tariffs Reshape Manufacturing
New research from the Coalition for a Prosperous America documents domestic producers recovering market share across sectors covered by Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper. The analysis provides empirical grounding for the protectionist case: protected markets allow domestic industry to invest, expand, and retain workers at a scale that import competition precludes. The numbers are beginning to bear it out.
Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA)
White House CEA Report: China’s Import Share Falls to 9.3 Percent
The Council of Economic Advisers’ annual report to Congress, released Monday, documents China’s declining share of U.S. imports at 9.3 percent for January through October 2025, down from the prior year and approaching the 8.9 percent figure recorded in 2000 before WTO accession reshaped American industrial geography. The administration is presenting the data as evidence that tariff policy is producing the supply-chain reorientation it was designed to achieve.
Council of Economics Advisers (CEA)
Commerce Eyes 10-Point Reduction in AD/CVD Rates on Canadian Lumber
Preliminary findings from Commerce’s annual review place the antidumping margin at 10.66 percent and the subsidy rate at 14.17 percent for Canadian softwood lumber, a combined reduction of roughly 10 percentage points from prior levels. Canadian lumber imports have been a persistent competitive pressure on domestic producers; any reduction in protective rates before final determination warrants close attention from the American timber industry.
Department of Commerce
DOJ: Supreme Court IEEPA Ruling Does Not Touch De Minimis Authority
The Justice Department argued in a Court of International Trade brief this week that the Supreme Court’s February ruling against IEEPA tariff authority has no bearing on the executive’s power to eliminate the de minimis exemption for low-value goods. The distinction carries real supply-chain significance, particularly for the small-parcel channels through which Chinese goods have entered the U.S. market at high volume and low visibility. The administration is defending its customs enforcement tools on multiple legal fronts simultaneously.
Inside Trade
CBP Sets April 20 Launch for IEEPA Tariff Refund System
Customs and Border Protection will open the first phase of its IEEPA tariff refund processing system on April 20, following a CIT order requiring orderly refund issuance after the Supreme Court’s February ruling. The system represents the administrative resolution of one legal chapter while the administration reconstructs its tariff regime through Section 122 and other statutory authorities. The transition is being managed in an orderly fashion.
Inside Trade
CIT Panel Examines Section 122 Statutory Requirements
A three-judge CIT panel met April 10 to hear parallel challenges from Democratic state attorneys general and other plaintiffs against tariffs imposed under Section 122, the authority the administration has been employing to rebuild its tariff architecture since the IEEPA ruling. The panel’s questions focused on how to define key statutory conditions. The outcome will shape the legal durability of the Section 122 framework now being assembled and merits continued attention.
Inside Trade
Australia and U.S. Designate Priority Critical Minerals Projects Under Bilateral Framework
Australia and the United States have identified a set of priority critical minerals and rare earths projects under a framework signed last year, supported by more than $3.5 billion in financing and formalized by Australia’s Resources and Trade ministers together with Interior Secretary Burgum. The designations reflect a sustained effort to develop allied-nation supply chains as an alternative to Chinese-controlled production. The proximate question for American industrial policy is whether domestic processing capacity expands to match the upstream development.
Inside Trade
ON THE RADAR
USTR Greer testifies Thursday before the House Appropriations subcommittee on the agency’s budget; WTO Director-General Okonjo-Iweala is also in Washington this week, providing an unusual backdrop for the hearing.
The Wall Street Journal examines whether a year of high tariffs has produced the trade reshaping the administration intended; worth watching for data points the protectionist case can engage with directly.
CBC profiles American companies that view tariffs as competitive assets rather than cost burdens, a useful counter-narrative to the dominant press framing.
Polling shows sixty percent of Canadians now express openness to EU membership, a figure that reflects how fundamentally the U.S.-Canada trade relationship has been reordered over the past year.
TODAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY
On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln attended Ford’s Theatre for the last time. Lincoln stood in the direct line of Henry Clay’s protectionist tradition; his administration presided over a sustained increase in tariff rates that funded the Union war effort and established the high-tariff industrial policy framework that underpinned American manufacturing growth for the following half-century.
Tariff Times Daily is published by the American Protective Tariff League.