Trump plans to sign ‘Close to 100’ executive orders: Follow live

The topics that Mr. Trump will direct his officials to investigate in an executive order on Monday, will be wide-ranging, including the trade deficit and trade deals made with China, Canada and Mexico. That could increase the president’s ability to impose tariffs on numerous targets for many different reasons, potentially disrupting international supply chains and spawning global trade wars in the coming weeks and months.

The executive order would direct federal agencies to investigate unfair trade and foreign exchange practices and assess whether foreign governments have complied with the terms of the two trade agreements that Mr. Trump signed in his first presidency. It will also require the government to assess the possibility of setting up an “external revenue service” to collect tariffs and taxes

Mr. Trump is also ordering an investigation into tariffs imposed by the US for national security reasons, as well as the use of a special trade exemption, called de minimis, which allows low-value goods to enter the US duty-free. That loophole has allowed large quantities of Chinese goods to escape the tariffs that Mr. Trump lashed out at China during his first term. The details of the order were previously reported by The Wall Street Journal.

While Mr. Trump has decided to delay the tariffs until now, his advisers say, because he remains more convinced than ever that they can be used to great advantage.

The president and his advisers have favored a combination of policies, including a universal tariff on foreign products, a higher tariff on China and separate measures that could address the trade relationship with Mexico and Canada by also imposing taxes on those countries, people familiar with the plans said. said.

In his inauguration speech on Monday, Mr. Trump that he would “immediately begin overhauling our trading system to protect American workers and families.”

There will be “massive amounts of money flowing into our coffers” because of tariffs, he said. “The American Dream will soon be back and thriving like never before.”

Mr. Trump has praised the tariffs for their ability to help American factories, raise revenue to help pay for the tax cuts he hopes to enact and generally serve as a source of leverage in negotiations with foreign countries.

While regulation of trade is technically the domain of Congress, various trade laws have given the president far-reaching powers to issue tariffs. The president can use them to defend US national security, respond to unfair trade practices, and address various types of international emergencies.

Mr. Trump and his advisers continue to debate the best method to use to issue their tariffs, but they believe they have the legal authority to use any of them, people familiar with the deliberations said.

Some American manufacturers credit the tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed in his first term – and as President Joseph R. Biden Jr. kept in place – to help their businesses survive amid intense competition from countries like China. But economists and many other companies argue that tariffs can cause economic damage, as they raise the prices of imported goods and encourage retaliation from other governments that could hurt U.S. exports.

Mr. Trump’s order will keep foreign governments on alert in the coming weeks as they try to establish closer ties with his administration and convince the president not to target them.

Canadian officials have drawn up a list of American goods they intend to retaliate if hit by Mr. Trump’s tariffs, including Florida orange juice, Tennessee whiskey and Kentucky peanut butter. Mexico has also threatened retaliatory tariffs on US exports, as have the EU and other governments.

During his first term, Mr. Trump the country’s global trade relations by imposing tariffs on foreign washing machines, solar panels, metals and a range of products from China. These moves nearly doubled the average tariff rate applied to imported goods, although US tariffs still remained relatively low by international standards.

Economists have expressed concern about Mr. Trump’s plans to expand these taxes. They say that while tariffs may help certain protected U.S. industries, they have other downsides for the economy, including raising costs for households and businesses that rely on imported products.

Lydia Cox, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described tariffs as “a pretty blunt instrument” in an online forum hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School last week.

There are some potential benefits to protected industries from tariffs, she said, “but they create a lot of collateral damage along the way.”