Ed Gresser on Trade Policy

Our most recent comment on this case is the Amicus Curiae brief filed on September 18th, so that does come after USTR's July 23rd publication of its decision. On your two questions - 1. I don't think the product exclusions will change the overall cost of these tariffs significantly. The $100 billion comes from experience with the 10% global IEEPA tariff of 2025, which was in effect for about 9 1/2 months and raised about $85 billion. It had similar product exclusions, so the cost to the public of a year of 12.5% and 10% 301 tariffs will likely be pretty similar. 2. Our brief (attached below) addresses a different question than the one you've mentioned. (I very much recommend the Amicus brief of Carla Hills, Alan Wollff, and Warren Maruyama for that, as well as the plaintiffs' brief.) Ours argues that USTR's 301 investigation has not actually identified a "burden" or "restriction" on U.S. commerce - the standard the statute sets for administrations wanting to use it to impose tariffs - and so the Report of last June does not give USTR a right to impose tariffs. Basically, USTR says the countries covered in the investigation don't have sufficient laws to ban imports of goods made with forced labor, and this burdens U.S. commerce because forced labor goods are artificially cheap, so they (a) displace more honorable U.S. goods, and (b) allow the listed countries to use forced-labor inputs to produce their own goods at unreasonably low prices. We argue that this fails on two fundamental grounds: (i) The Report does not contain any actual cases of trade in goods made with the use of forced labor. Instead it just guesses or assumes that they probably are, without proof. For example, the Report says that Spanish beer breweries import some Burmese rice, that a Labor Department report says there are allegations that some Burmese rice is produced with forced labor, and that therefore the breweries should be considered to be buying forced-labor goods and this justifies a 10% tariff on everything made in the European Union. In fact Americans also buy Burmese rice, and CBP has not imposed any Withhold Release Order on it, so the U.S.' own policy is that it's fine to buy Burmese rice unless there's reasonable grounds to believe an actual specific shipment contains forced labor goods. In fact, there's no showing that any of the 60 economies are importing forced labor goods, so USTR hasn't shown that there's any burden on commerce and does not have a right to impose tariffs. (ii) The Report also does not show that forced-labor goods are actually cheaper than lawfully made goods. Instead it just claims without evidence, or even quotations from others' analyses, that "in general" that's how forced labor enterprises work. It seems plausible that some may operate that way, but equally plausible that they would sell at normal market prices so as to make more profit. The only way to determine which pattern is correct, or whether there's any "in general" pattern at all, is empirical data and analysis. The Report does not offer it and therefore hasn't shown that there's any "burden" on U.S. commerce. Again, this means they haven't fulfilled the terms of the statute and don't have the right to impose tariffs. * Also note: Experience from the U.S. in forced-labor goods production doesn't show there's any necessary pricing effect. The criminal enterprise in largest recent case, the "Blooming Onions" prosecutions for forced labor in onion and blueberry harvesting in Georgia, operated quite differently from the way USTR describes forced labor economics - it simply diverted money that should have gone to workers to the operators of the enterprise, without affecting prices at all.