Peter Harrell is an American lawyer and international economic-policy specialist. He is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, and previously worked on economic policy at the White House and State Department. He worked at the White House from 2021 to 2022 and at the State Department from 2009 to 2014. He graduated from Princeton University and Yale Law School.
DI has documented statements by Peter Harrell on Canada, Trade Policy, and U.S. Politics. Read the quotations, original sources and related cases below.
Role at the time: Lawyer and international economic-policy specialist
Condemned
Statement summary
Harrell finds persuasive the arguments that Canada's acts are not discrimination under the statute and that the tariffs do not offset it, and says they would at least significantly narrow the tariffs.
“I have written about Section 338 elsewhere and I find these arguments persuasive: Canada's acts that are the purported basis for the Section 338 tariffs are not "discrimination" within the meaning of the statute, and the tariffs do not "offset" the burden of the discrimination. At the very least, these arguments would mean a significant narrowing of the tariffs.”
Relative to imposing the Section 338 tariffs, Harrell finds the arguments against their statutory basis persuasive. His uncertainty about the litigation does not express support for the tariffs.
Gellert Global Group challenges Trump's Section 338 tariffs on Canadian goods. The administration calls the duties a response to discrimination. The importer argues that later trade laws and Section 338's own limits make them unlawful.