Tariff Times Daily: Greer and Ebrard Set Late May for First USMCA Round
Greer and Ebrard confirm late May for the first formal USMCA negotiating round; Commerce finds Chinese aluminum circumventing AD/CVD orders through Thailand and Vietnam; USA Rare Earth acquires Brazil
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.
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.