President Donald Trump’s tariff policy defeat in the US Supreme Court will not impact the individual trade agreements the administration has negotiated with its trading partners, Bloomberg reported, citing US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
On Sunday, 22 February, Greer on CBS’s Face the Nation said that the deals the administration made with China, the European Union, South Korea, and others remain in place. He tried to distinguish those agreements from the planned 15% global tariff announced by Trump on Saturday.
“We want them to understand these deals are going to be good deals,” Greer said. “We’re going to stand by them. We expect our partners to stand by them.”
The high court ruling that struck down Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs came before the president’s scheduled trip to China next month. Greer suggested that other US trade tools, including investigations linked to trade practices of other countries, could provide leverage for the US.
“We have tariffs like this already in place on China, we have open investigations already,” he said.
Focus on Trump’s visit to China
Trump is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit beginning on 31 March.
“The president and Xi have a strong relationship,” Greer told Fox News Sunday that the US maintains an average tariff of 40% on China without relying on the emergency law that the court struck down.
Uncertainty among trading partners
Trump’s approach to trade, largely questioned by the Supreme Court, has raised uncertainty among US trading partners across the globe, including the European Union.
The European Parliament’s trade chief on Sunday said that he will suggest suspending the EU’s ratification of the trade agreement with the US until the Trump administration provides detailed information on its trade policies.
Greer said he “spoke with my counterpart from the EU this weekend”and would be engaging with officials of other key US trading partners to reassure them.
“Rest assured, I’ve been speaking to these folks as well,” Greer told CBS. “I’ve 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.