Latest news with #Section301
Time of India
2 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
EU gains leverage in trade talks as US court casts doubt on tariffs, EU officials say
The European Union has gained leverage in trade talks with the United States after a U.S. court cast doubt on the legality of Washington's "reciprocal" tariffs, EU officials said on Friday. A U.S. federal appeals court temporarily reinstated President Donald Trump's tariffs on Thursday, a day after a U.S. trade court ruled that Trump had exceeded his authority in imposing the duties and ordered an immediate block on them. "The uncertainty as to the legality of the 'reciprocal' tariffs certainly gives us extra leverage," one EU official close to the talks said. "The talks will continue, as formally we still look for zero-for-zero tariffs." by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch CFD với công nghệ và tốc độ tốt hơn IC Markets Tìm hiểu thêm If the court system ultimately rules against Trump's use of the IEEPA emergency act, the administration could make use of other provisions in the U.S. Trade Act such as Section 301, which has been broadly used with China. "You'd need to establish 'injury' and a legal basis and it takes months. Administratively, they might still do a hatchet job ... given checks and balances are not that strong in the U.S. right now but it won't be as easy or done as quickly as IEEPA," Niclas Poitiers, research fellow at EU Brussels think tank Bruegel, told Reuters Live Events "It would at least buy the EU some time." The EU was willing to discuss some non-trade barriers with the U.S., EU officials said, but would not touch the EU's taxation system -- such as the value added tax or digital tax -- or food safety standards. The EU officials said the uncertainty created by the court rulings and the Trump administration's tariff policy had a positive aspect for Europe, which was seen by markets as an oasis of stability in comparison. "This is the watchword: uncertainty. It is impossible to know what the status of the tariffs will be next week, not to mention next month," one of the EU officials said. "If you want sane, stable, even boring, rules-based order and predictable business environment, Europe is the place for you." Meanwhile, some European companies, worried over the uncertainty and possible major hits to their business, are holding their own talks with U.S. authorities. Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume said his company was holding "fair" and "constructive" talks with the U.S. government on tariffs and wanted to make further investments in the country. The European Commission conducts all trade negotiations on behalf of the 27-nation bloc and companies, or even individual EU countries, cannot legally get a deal outside that framework. "Now it looks like we're not in the most damaging economic scenario ... but it still maintains the uncertainty and maybe increases it because there is a new player that people have not taken into account so far - the courts," Poitiers at Bruegel said. EU-US TRADE TALKS The European Commission would not comment on the U.S. court rulings because they were internal U.S. procedures. But it said trade talks between Brussels and Washington would continue, with Europe sticking to its offer of mutual zero tariffs on industrial goods. "There's no change in our approach, we proceed as planned with both technical and political meetings next week," a Commission spokesperson said. EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic in a post on the X social media platform said he held a phone call with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Friday. "Our time and effort fully invested, as delivering forward-looking solutions remains a top EU priority. Staying in permanent contact," Sefcovic said on X. More trade talks between the U.S. and the EU are scheduled for next week, on the sidelines of the OECD Ministerial Council Meeting in Paris on June 3-4. The EU officials said the U.S. courts' rulings validated the EU view that the sweeping "reciprocal" tariffs, imposed on all goods from the EU and many other countries around the world on April 2, were unjustified. They also said that while U.S. courts did not question Washington's 25% tariffs imposed on European steel, aluminium and cars, the rulings could also play a role in the EU's efforts to get those tariffs lowered or removed.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Team's Plan B is to ram through tariffs using obscure law to negate ‘rogue judges': report
White House officials are already plumbing the depths of the U.S. legal code to find ways to get around judicial orders and carry out President Donald Trump's plan to impose massive import taxes on goods from nearly every country on the globe. On Wednesday, the U.S. International Trade court struck down Trump's use of emergency powers to put tariffs on nearly every nation around the globe and also struck down the tariffs imposed on Mexican, Canadian and Chinese imports by the president with the stated aim of combatting fentanyl and drug trafficking from those countries. The decision to bar the tariffs, which was put on hold by the U.S. Court of Appeals a day later while the government appeals the ruling, eviscerated major planks of Trump's trade policy in response to a lawsuit in which the attorneys general of 12 states and a number of small American companies urged the court to strike down the import taxes on the grounds that Trump had exceeded his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. But administration officials are already planning a way to pivot to using other powers to get around what they have repeatedly labeled the 'rogue judges' that have repeatedly ruled against Trump. According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump and his advisers are looking at invoking a never-before-used section of the 1974 Trade Act known as Section 122, which allows for a 15-percent tariff to be placed on imports for up to 150 days, in order to deal with trade imbalances with other countries. During that period, the White House would then start the process to impose alternative tariffs on individual countries' exports under Section 301 of the same 1974 law. Trump used Section 301 on multiple occasions during his first term to impose tariffs on some Chinese steel and aluminum imports, but using that authority takes time because it requires a notice-and-comment period. The judges that ruled against him said Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs, which set a 10 percent baseline tax on all imports and even higher taxes on imports from nearly every one of America's trading partners, 'exceed any authority granted to the President by IEEPA to regulate importation by means of tariffs.' They also rejected Trump's use of the emergency powers to tax Mexican, Canadian and Chinese imports because those tariffs don't specifically 'deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared,' as required by law. It's unclear whether the White House will seek to employ either of those alternate strategies while the case against Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs proceeds. Doing so might be seen by the appeals court — or the Supreme Court — as a concession that the Court for International Trade's decision was, in fact, correct. Thus far, the White House isn't even close to conceding that the three-judge panel, which included one jurist nominated to the New York-based court by Trump during his first term, might have been right to say Trump exceeded his authority. Instead, the president's top aides have been engaged in a full-throated campaign to attack and delegitimize the little-known court's ruling as part of what White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called a 'judicial coup' in a social media post on Wednesday. Peter Navarro, Trump's senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, has been going on the attack in a series of TV appearances in which he has criticized the 'rogue judges' of the court, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt used her opening remarks at Thursday's White House press briefing to accuse the judges of having 'brazenly abused their judicial power to usurp the authority of President Trump to stop him from carrying out the mandate that the American people gave him.' 'These judges failed to acknowledge that the President of the United States has core Foreign Affairs powers and authority given to him by Congress to protect the United States economy and national security,' Leavitt added. For his part, Navarro has steadfastly denied that Trump's tariffs could have any economic or political cost for the president or his Republican allies. When he was asked about a column in the Journal by longtime GOP strategist Karl Rove in which Rove said the tariffs posed a 'messaging challenge' for Trump, Navarro became irate and emotional during a Thursday appearance on Fox Business Network. He also fumed about the 'rogue judges' who rejected the administration's arguments that Trump currently has broad authority to import sweeping tariffs under emergency powers and called Rove a washed-up has-been whose 'day has passed about ... a decade ago.' 'He hates the tariffs, he hates Donald Trump,' he said.
The Hindu
2 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
Germany weighs 10% tax on online platforms like Google
Germany is considering a 10% tax on large online platforms like Alphabet's Google and Meta's Facebook, its new minister of state for culture told magazine Stern, in a move likely to heighten trade tensions with the Trump administration. The proposal comes as Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected to travel to Washington soon to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, although a trip has not yet been officially announced. Trump has in the past said he will not allow foreign governments to "appropriate America's tax base for their own benefit". Culture Minister of State Wolfram Weimer said officials were drafting a legislative proposal while also seeking talks with platform operators that he accused of "cunning tax evasion" to explore alternative solutions like voluntary contributions. "These corporations do billions in business in Germany with extremely high profit margins and benefit enormously from the country's media and cultural output as well as its infrastructure — but they pay hardly any taxes, invest too little, and give far too little back to society," he told Stern in an interview published on Thursday. Alphabet and Meta did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Germany's ruling parties agreed in a deal earlier this year to consider the introduction of a digital services levy, but this was not on the list of projects the coalition wants to prioritise. Weimer's proposal had not yet been agreed upon by the government, officials said. If the government goes ahead with the tax on sales revenue generated by digital services providers within its borders, it would join a raft of other countries to have done so such as Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, India, Austria and Canada. During Trump's first term, the U.S. Trade Representative's office launched a Section 301 investigation into unfair trade practices against several of these countries, finding they discriminated against U.S. companies, paving the way for retaliatory tariffs on certain imports. In February, Trump ordered his trade chief to revive investigations aimed at imposing tariffs on imports from countries that levy digital service taxes on U.S. technology companies. That does not, however, appear to have deterred the new German government, which took office earlier this month. Weimer accused the big digital platforms of building up "monopoly-like structures" that not only restrict competition but also concentrate media power too heavily", posing a risk for freedom of expression. "If Google, under pressure from Donald Trump, unilaterally renames the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America— and simply decrees this due to its enormous power to shape meaning in global communication — then we can see the kinds of problems that lie within the current structures," he said.
Mint
3 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Trump's team plots plan B for imposing tariffs
President Trump's trade team is readying its plan B. The administration's tariff strategy was undermined when a court this week found it was illegal for Trump to impose sweeping duties by using emergency economic powers. A federal appeals court on Thursday allowed his duties to stay in effect while the administration's appeal moves forward, but U.S. officials are weighing their options should they need to find a new legal authority to impose the president's steep tariffs, which he argues will help rebalance trade in America's favor. The potential pivot reflects the challenges to Trump's aggressive trade policy, which relied on a novel interpretation of trade law. Typically, tariffs are imposed using targeted authority delegated to the president by Congress, but Trump's team relied on little-used emergency powers to impose the bulk of his wide-ranging second-term tariffs quickly. With that strategy under threat, the president's team is weighing a twofold response, according to people familiar with the matter. First, the administration is considering a stopgap effort to impose tariffs on swaths of the global economy under a never-before-used provision of the Trade Act of 1974, which includes language allowing for tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days to address trade imbalances with other countries, the people said. That would then buy time for Trump to devise individualized tariffs for each major trading partner under a different provision of the same law, used to counter unfair foreign trade practices. That second step requires a lengthy notification and comment process, but is seen by administration officials as more legally defensible than the tariff policy that was found to be illegal this week. The alternative provision has been used many times in the past, including for Trump's first-term tariffs on China. Peter Navarro, senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, is floating alternative strategies. The conversations remained fluid, and the administration hadn't made a final decision, the people added. The administration could wait to implement any alternative plans after the federal appeals court allowed Trump's emergency tariffs to stay in place during the appeals process. The White House and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative didn't respond to requests for comment. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Thursday that the administration is weighing other options to impose tariffs as it appeals the court rulings, but she didn't give specifics. Peter Navarro, senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, appeared to confirm that the administration is considering a twofold alternative tariff plan, which would first use Section 122 of the 1974 trade law, and then Section 301. 'Those are the kinds of thoughts" the economic team is considering, he said when asked about those provisions on Bloomberg TV. Navarro also suggested that the administration could use the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which has a provision that allows for tariffs on nations that discriminate against America. The U.S. could also expand the use of tariffs imposed citing national-security concerns. All of the options under consideration now were discussed in the early weeks of the administration, but officials opted to instead impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, also known as IEEPA. The law had never been used before to impose tariffs but allowed the administration to move quickly to impose levies on virtually every global trading partner. In its decision Wednesday, the U.S. Court of International Trade struck down Trump's use of IEEPA to address trade deficits. In doing so, the court pointed to Section 122, the measure Trump's team is now weighing as a stopgap policy, saying part of federal law already grants explicit authority to address 'large and serious balance-of-payments deficits." Pivoting to a different tariff authority could pose risks. If the administration moves to use a different law, that could be seen by courts as admitting defeat in ongoing appeals in the IEEPA case. 'The administration could quickly turn to other tariff authorities, but doing so while the ruling is under judicial review could be seen as a lack of confidence in the final decision," said Everett Eissenstat, who served as deputy director of the National Economic Council in Trump's first term. Trump's alternative plan would likely still face legal challenges, said Peter Harrell, who served as senior director for international economics on the Biden administration's National Security Council. But both elements are on firmer legal ground than the IEEPA tariffs, he said. The Court of International Trade 'seemed to indicate that Section 122 is how you'd address a trade deficit," Harrell said. Section 301, he added, has a long case law history, and action under that provision would likely be upheld as long as the Trump administration can point to unfair trade practices from each targeted nation. In all, the plan is 'certainly more defensible than the IEEPA tariffs," he said. Trump's potential alternative tariff plan has an advantage: Using another law to reimpose the tariffs could smooth over any interruptions in tariffs because of the court's ruling, preserving Trump's leverage in ongoing trade talks. In a filing asking for an emergency stay on the Court of International Trade's decision, the administration said the ruling 'jeopardizes ongoing negotiations with dozens of countries by severely constraining the President's leverage and undermining the premise of ongoing negotiations." That appeared to contradict National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, who insisted Thursday that trade negotiations will continue unabated and that three deals are close to being completed. Navarro similarly said that 'nothing has really changed." The ruling on Wednesday came days after the president threatened to impose 50% tariffs on the European Union and then quickly pulled back to allow for negotiations until July 9—a deadline now thrown into question. A rise in global stocks supports the EU's argument that tariffs aren't good for anyone, Spanish Minister of Economy Carlos Cuerpo said Thursday. He said the bloc is taking 'a constructive approach to reaching an agreement and, if possible, even reducing barriers" below pretariff dispute levels. Some analysts said the ruling could ease the path for a trade deal between the U.S. and EU by removing, if the decision survives Trump's appeal, a key sticking point from the negotiations. Ignacio García Bercero, a former EU trade official, said that removing the U.S.'s 10% tariff on European imports and the threat of further across-the-board tariffs would allow trade negotiators to focus instead on the U.S.'s sectoral tariffs on such industries as steel and automobiles. Those were implemented on national-security grounds, not using the economic-powers law, and will be unaffected by the continuing court battle. 'If there's a more pragmatic attitude from the United States and also, of course, from the European Union, one would have the opportunity to try to use this to find a more balanced type of agreement that is in the interest of both sides," he said. Write to Gavin Bade at and Kim Mackrael at
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Germany weighs 10% tax on online platforms like Google
By Sarah Marsh BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany is considering a 10% tax on large online platforms like Alphabet's Google and Meta's Facebook, its new minister of state for culture told magazine Stern, in a move likely to heighten trade tensions with the Trump administration. The proposal comes as Chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected to travel to Washington soon to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump, although a trip has not yet been officially announced. Trump has in the past said he will not allow foreign governments to "appropriate America's tax base for their own benefit". Culture Minister of State Wolfram Weimer said officials were drafting a legislative proposal while also seeking talks with platform operators that he accused of "cunning tax evasion" to explore alternative solutions like voluntary contributions. "These corporations do billions in business in Germany with extremely high profit margins and benefit enormously from the country's media and cultural output as well as its infrastructure — but they pay hardly any taxes, invest too little, and give far too little back to society," he told Stern in an interview published on Thursday. Alphabet and Meta did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Germany's ruling parties agreed in a deal earlier this year to consider the introduction of a digital services levy, but this was not on the list of projects the coalition wants to prioritize. Weimer's proposal had not yet been agreed upon by the government, officials said. If the government goes ahead with the tax on sales revenue generated by digital services providers within its borders, it would join a raft of other countries to have done so such as Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, India, Austria and Canada. During Trump's first term, the U.S. Trade Representative's office launched a Section 301 investigation into unfair trade practices against several of these countries, finding they discriminated against U.S. companies, paving the way for retaliatory tariffs on certain imports. In February, Trump ordered his trade chief to revive investigations aimed at imposing tariffs on imports from countries that levy digital service taxes on U.S. technology companies. That does not, however, appear to have deterred the new German government, which took office earlier this month. Weimer accused the big digital platforms of building up "monopoly-like structures" that not only restrict competition but also concentrate media power too heavily", posing a risk for freedom of expression. "If Google, under pressure from Donald Trump, unilaterally renames the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America— and simply decrees this due to its enormous power to shape meaning in global communication — then we can see the kinds of problems that lie within the current structures," he said. Sign in to access your portfolio
