White House Announces Investigation to Consider Imposing Reciprocal Tariffs on Other Countries

By: Rick Walker, Vice President, TradeInsights, LCB/CCS

President Trump on Thursday afternoon, Feb. 13, announced that it will commence a comprehensive investigation to determine “the equivalent of a reciprocal tariff with respect to each foreign trading partner” on other countries with existing tariffs on U.S. goods. However, it appears that any such tariffs will not be levied for at least several months.

According to a presidential memorandum released yesterday, the investigation will examine the following:

• Tariffs imposed on U.S. products.
• Unfair, discriminatory, or extraterritorial taxes imposed by trading partners on U.S. businesses, workers, and consumers, including a value-added tax.
• Costs to U.S. businesses, workers, and consumers arising from non-tariff barriers or measures; unfair or harmful acts, policies, or practices, including subsidies; and burdensome regulatory requirements on U.S. businesses operating in other countries.
• Policies and practices that cause exchange rates to deviate from their market value to the detriment of Americans.
• Wage suppression.
• Other mercantilist policies that make U.S. businesses and workers less competitive.
• Any other practice deemed to impose any unfair limitation on market access or any structural impediment to fair competition with the market economy of the U.S.

The investigation will not begin until at least April 1, which is the due date for several reports on various trade-related issues, and no deadline was specified for its completion.

We will continue to monitor this an provide updates as they are available.

Please contact your V. Alexander account team, or you may also contact our Trade Compliance team at tradeinsights@valexander.com with any questions.