Trump has long expressed his frustration about automotive imports, but the latest threat has taken an unexpected turn.
President Donald Trump’s threats to slap substantial new tariffs on automotive imports could “undermine the multilateral trade system and disrupt the order of international trade,” China’s commerce secretary said on Thursday.
The president has long expressed his frustration about automotive imports, raising the threat of a “substantial border tax” targeting automakers like Ford for increasing the number of vehicles they bring in from Mexico — but the latest threat has taken an unexpected turn.
To avoid having to negotiate new tariffs with Congress, Trump wants Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to investigate whether auto imports are a threat to national security, something he could act on unilaterally under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
On Wednesday, the president signaled in a tweet that there will be “big news coming soon for our great American autoworkers.” Hours later, the White House issued a terse statement announcing the auto imports investigation, with Trump declaring, “Core industries such as automobiles and automotive parts are critical to our strength as a nation.”
Exactly what the White House might have in mind is uncertain, though reports quickly begin circulating, citing unnamed administration sources, that tariffs on auto imports could jump as high as 25 percent. That would be a tenfold increase on the 2.5 percent duties currently in place — with the exception of the 25 percent “chicken tax” on imported pickup trucks that is a holdover of a decades-old trade dispute with Europe over American poultry.
Ironically, the possibility is there that the U.
