US starts second trade probe in Trump’s tariff policy revival

President Donald Trump’s administration began its second tariff investigation in as many days, continuing its effort to rebuild his key trade policy that was struck down by the Supreme Court.

The office of US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Thursday initiated the probe under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act into forced-labour practices in 60 economies. The European Union, China, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, India, Taiwan and the UK are among the targets of the inquiry.

“The investigations will determine whether acts, policies, and practices of each of these economies related to the failure to impose and effectively enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labour are unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict U.S. commerce,” Greer said in a statement late Thursday.

The move follows another sweeping inquiry announced Wednesday focused on industrial overcapacity in more than a dozen US trading partners, including major economies such as China, India, Japan and the EU.

The Trump administration has rushed to construct a new tariff regime after the high court ruled that the president violated the US Constitution by imposing many of his previous duties using an emergency law.

Trump’s stopgap replacement levies, which fall under Section 122 of the Trade Act, expire in July. Greer has said his goal is to complete a series of trade investigations by then in order to allow the president to quickly enact new tariffs after the outgoing measures expire.

All told, Trump has said that his goal is to simply replace the tariffs that the court struck down. Section 301 tariffs are more durable and legally tested than other authorities Trump has leaned toward, but are more time-consuming.

Containers offloaded from a ship at the Port of Savannah in Georgia. Photographer: Megan Varner/Bloomberg

“We had a little disappointing decision to put it mildly from the Supreme Court,” the president told US House Republicans during a speech on Monday. “The good news is I have lots of other ways of doing the same thing. I just have to work a little harder.”

The industrial capacity investigation also targeted more than a dozen US trading partners, including China and the EU. Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico and Japan were also subject to it.

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