Senior US officers mentioned President Donald Trump’s tariff defeat on the Supreme Court docket gained’t unravel offers negotiated with US companions as they sought to defend the administration’s assertive commerce insurance policies.
These offers — which the administration made with companions together with China, the European Union, Japan and South Korea — stay in place, US Commerce Consultant Jamieson Greer mentioned Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. He sought to separate these preparations from the deliberate 15% world tariff Trump introduced Saturday.
“We want them to understand these deals are going to be good deals,” Greer mentioned. “We’re going to stand by them. We expect our partners to stand by them.”
Friction over the renewed uncertainty spilled out Sunday because the European Parliament’s commerce chief mentioned he’ll suggest freezing the EU’s ratification of a commerce take care of the US till the Trump administration clarifies its coverage. In New Delhi, officers cited comparable causes for India suspending talks within the US this week on finalizing an interim commerce deal.
The US Supreme Court docket ruling that struck down Trump’s use of emergency authority to wield tariffs preceded his deliberate journey subsequent month to China. Greer urged that different US commerce instruments, together with these involving investigations of different international locations’ commerce practices, would give the US leverage.
“We have tariffs like this already in place on China, we have open investigations already,” he mentioned.
Trump is predicted to satisfy Chinese language President Xi Jinping throughout his go to beginning March 31.
Trump’s method to commerce, largely nullified by the Supreme Court docket, nonetheless has riled US buying and selling companions worldwide, together with the EU.
Greer mentioned he “spoke with my counterpart from the EU this weekend” and can be speaking with officers of different key US buying and selling companions to reassure them.
“Rest assured, I’ve been speaking to these folks as well,” Greer instructed CBS. “I’ve been telling them for a year — whether we won or lost, we were going to have tariffs, the president’s policy was going to continue.”
“That’s why they signed these deals even while the litigation was pending,” he mentioned.
The European Fee, the EU’s govt arm in Brussels, mentioned Sunday it needs “full clarity” on the Trump administration’s subsequent steps. “A deal is a deal,” the bloc’s govt arm mentioned in a press release, including that it expects the US to honor its commitments underneath a commerce deal signed in August.
European Central Financial institution President Christine Lagarde mentioned it’s “critically important” for world commerce to “have clarity” from the US administration.
“I hope it’s going to be clarified, and it’s going to be sufficiently thought through so that we don’t have, again, more challenges and the proposals will be in compliance with the constitution, in compliance with the law,” Lagarde mentioned on Face the Nation.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mentioned earlier Sunday the US was in touch with its international buying and selling companions “and they like the tariff deals.”
Consultant Don Bacon, a Republican tariff skeptic who has praised the Supreme Court docket ruling, mentioned in a social publish that Trump’s new 15% tariff order “will not endure.”
The brand new tariffs might be primarily based on Part 122 of the 1974 Commerce Act, which permits the president to impose tariffs for 150 days with out congressional approval underneath particular circumstances, together with “large and serious” stability of funds deficits.
“It is not Constitutional,” Bacon mentioned on X. “It’s not only terrible policy, but it is also bad politics.”
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Greer signaled that US commerce companions shouldn’t depend on tariff aid primarily based on the Supreme Court docket ruling.
He mentioned the 15% world tariff that Trump introduced Saturday is “roughly equivalent to the types of tariffs that we had in place” underneath the Worldwide Emergency Financial Powers Act — the instrument that the courtroom dominated Trump can’t use for tariffs.
“The reality is, we want to maintain the policy we have, have as much continuity as possible,” Greer mentioned on ABC’s This Week.
