US tells partners to honour tariff deals as Trump regroups
The US president is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit starting Mar 31
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[WASHINGTON] Senior US officials said that US President Donald Trump’s tariff defeat at the Supreme Court won’t unravel deals negotiated with US partners as they sought to defend the administration’s assertive trade policies.
Those deals, which the administration made with partners including China, the European Union, Japan and South Korea, remain in place, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Sunday (Feb 22). He sought to separate those arrangements from the planned 15 per cent global tariff Trump announced on Saturday.
“We want them to understand these deals are going to be good deals,” Greer said. “We are going to stand by them. We expect our partners to stand by them.”
Friction over the renewed uncertainty spilled out on Sunday as the European Parliament’s trade chief said that he will propose freezing the EU’s ratification of a trade deal with the US until the Trump administration clarifies its policy. In New Delhi, officials cited similar reasons for India postponing talks in the US this week on finalising an interim trade deal.
The US Supreme Court ruling that struck down Trump’s use of emergency authority to wield tariffs preceded his planned trip next month to China. Greer suggested that alternative US trade tools, including those involving investigations of other countries’ trade practices, would give the US leverage.
“We have tariffs like this already in place on China, we have open investigations already,” he said.
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Trump is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit starting Mar 31.
“The president and Xi have a strong relationship,” Greer said on Sunday. The US maintains an average tariff of 40 per cent on China without using the emergency law struck down by the court, he said.
Trump’s approach to trade, largely nullified by the Supreme Court, nevertheless has riled US trading partners worldwide, including the EU.
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Greer said that he “spoke with my counterpart from the EU this weekend” and would be talking with officials of other key US trading partners to reassure them.
“Rest assured, I have been speaking to these folks as well,” Greer told CBS. “I have been telling them for a year – whether we won or lost, we were going to have tariffs, the president’s policy was going to continue.”
“That’s why they signed these deals even while the litigation was pending,” he said.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm in Brussels, said on Sunday that it wants “full clarity” on the Trump administration’s next steps. “A deal is a deal,” the bloc’s executive arm said in a statement, adding that it expects the US to honour its commitments under a trade deal signed in August.
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said it’s “critically important” for global trade to “have clarity” from the US administration.
“I hope it’s going to be clarified, and it’s going to be sufficiently thought through so that we don’t have, again, more challenges and the proposals will be in compliance with the constitution, in compliance with the law,” Lagarde said on Face the Nation.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US was in contact with its foreign trading partners, “and they like the tariff deals”.
“So you know, they are not going to be changed,” Bessent said.
Representative Don Bacon, a Republican tariff sceptic who has praised the Supreme Court ruling, said that Trump’s new 15 per cent tariff order “will not endure”.
The new tariffs will be based on Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which allows the president to impose tariffs for 150 days without congressional approval under specific circumstances, including “large and serious” balance of payments deficits.
“It is not Constitutional,” Bacon said. “It’s not only terrible policy, but it is also bad politics.”
Greer signalled that US trade partners should not count on tariff relief based on the Supreme Court ruling.
He said that the 15 per cent global tariff that Trump announced Saturday is “roughly equivalent to the types of tariffs that we had in place” under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act – the tool that the court ruled Trump cannot use for tariffs.
“The reality is, we want to maintain the policy we have, have as much continuity as possible,” Greer said. BLOOMBERG
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