Trump administration kicks off process to try to replace tariffs Supreme Court struck down

Trump and his team made it clear that they seek to replace the hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenues after the high court's February ruling by using different laws to establish new tariffs.

In this case, the administration will start investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which eventually could lead to new import taxes.

But U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, in a Wednesday call with reporters, said he didn't want to prejudge the outcome of the process.

"The policy remains the same — the tools may change depending on, you know, the vagaries of courts and other things," Greer said, stressing that the goal was to protect American jobs.

Trump's prior tariffs rattled the global economy last year.

The since-overturned tariffs led to new frameworks with U.S. trade partners — and it's unclear what effects a new set of import taxes could have on those agreements. Greer described the trade frameworks as standing on their own and suggested they were separate from the new investigation.

This new set of tariffs could play out against the backdrop of a war in Iran and midterm elections in which Democrats are running against Trump's Republican allies by emphasizing that the public is owed tariff refunds following the Supreme Court decision.

Greer said the investigation would examine excess industrial capacity and government backing that could give foreign companies an unfair advantage over U.S. companies.

The entities subject to the investigation include China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, the self-governing island of Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan and India. The government is looking for what it deems to be persistent trade surpluses with the U.S. and policies such as subsidies and the suppression of workers' wages, among other factors.

The administration also will roll out a Section 301 investigation to ban the import of goods made by forced labor.

Greer indicated there could be additional Section 301 investigations over issues such as digital service taxes, pharmaceutical drug pricing and ocean pollution, among other possibilities. The Commerce Department has separate trade investigations under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act.

There are timeline pressures for the administration to complete its investigations. The administration imposed 10% tariffs on foreign-made goods under section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, but those expire after 150 days on July 24. Trump said he planned to raise that import tax to 15% but has yet to do so.

Greer said the administration is "keying off" the new investigation based on the 150-day deadline, saying the goal is to bring "potential options" to Trump as soon as possible.

Greer said the investigations would be separate from the trade frameworks announced last year by Trump that set baseline tariff rates, which led to 15% rates charged on goods from the European Union, Japan and South Korea, among other places, that since were overturned by the Supreme Court. Still, he suggested the frameworks could play a factor.

"My sense is that these countries continue to want to deal, and President Trump continues to want the deal," Greer said, adding that since tariffs are in play the commitments that the countries made and the implementation of the frameworks would be considered as they "bump" against the demands of the Section 301 process.