Commerce Department

“Let's put it into arithmetic perspective: 25 percent on $200 billion, if it comes to pass, is $50 billion a year. Fifty billion dollars a year on an $18 trillion or so economy is three-tenths of one percent.”

A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday introduced legislation to reform Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 by delegating the authority to initiate probes to the Defense Department and giving Congress a more significant role in assessing any proposed restrictions.

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Doug Jones (D-AL) on Wednesday introduced a bill that would require the U.S. International Trade Commission to conduct a study on the auto sector before any Section 232 tariffs are applied.

House Ways & Means Democrats criticized the administration’s congressional engagement on trade policy after learning that Republican members of the committee would be able to address their concerns over the White House’s recent decisions to impose tariffs and processes relating to those actions with one of the president’s top aides on Wednesday.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström this week stopped short of fully endorsing a plurliateral solution to solve an auto trade dispute with the U.S., saying it was something that should be “explored” but not a surefire way to ease trade tensions.

If the Trump administration hits Seoul with tariffs as a result of its Section 232 autos investigation, the amended U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement “becomes meaningless,” Korea’s minister of trade, industry and energy said on Thursday.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this week addressed the U.S. reliance on foreign sources for critical minerals, with some members expressing concern that Trump administration tariffs could reduce access to key inputs for technology products.

Disputing the idea that imports of autos and auto parts pose a national security threat, more than 140 lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to use taxpayer dollars on “other endeavors."