U.S. Trade Representative Signals New Tariffs Amid Shift in Trade Policy

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Tuesday signaled another round of President Donald Trump's tariffs is on the way, the latest sign that the White House is working to re-create the protectionist trade agenda that suffered a major blow earlier this year.

"We expect to see some action soon," Greer told CNBC's "Squawk Box" when asked if new tariffs are forthcoming, in light of a Financial Times report Tuesday that more duties could be announced as soon as this week.

"I can't really specify a timeline right now. I have responsibility to brief Congress and other stakeholders before I really reveal that kind of thing," Greer noted, the day after the administration slapped tariffs on Canada. "But we do expect action soon."

The comments bolster trade experts' views that the Trump administration, after failing to keep its global "reciprocal" tariff regime intact, is poised to try to re-create its aggressive trade policy using the remaining tools at its disposal and pivoting to legal justifications for new duties that it expects to hold up to court challenges.

The apparently forthcoming duties, brought under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, have emerged as a key tool for that project — and they may prove more resilient than the 2025 tariffs that didn't withstand the U.S. legal system.

"The expectation is continuity," Blake Harden, a trade policy expert and managing director of Washington Council Ernst & Young, told CNBC. "We're really seeing a re-creation of that global tariff, and 301 being used as a way to lock that in."

Trump's temporary import levies that he imposed hours after the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping reciprocal tariff regime in February are set to lapse Friday.

Trump in February imposed a blanket 10% tariff under Section 122 of the 1974 trade law. The Section 122 tariffs will expire at 12:01 a.m. ET on Friday unless Congress intervenes, which it appears unlikely to do.

But the Trump administration has already taken steps to shore up its tariff regime once the 122 duties end.

In early June, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, or USTR, proposed more tariffs of up to 12.5% on imports from 60 economies. The new 301 duties would be imposed in response to alleged forced labor issues.

"The U.S. has laws to prohibit trading goods with forced labor," Greer said in Tuesday's interview. "Other countries, most don't have a law. Those that do don't really enforce it."

Greer said those proposed 301 tariffs would cover "about 99% of our trade."

The USTR telegraphed its new approach when it announced its investigation into the 60 economies in mid-March, one day after unveiling a spate of separate 301 probes centered on possible excess manufacturing capacity concerns.

The economies involved in those trade investigations are: China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan and India.

Any additional tariffs would come on top of other recent trade actions, including slapping 25% tariffs on most imports from Brazil, which were also brought under Section 301 and are set to take effect Wednesday.

On Monday, Trump signed proclamations to impose staggering new 50% tariffs in 30 days on a range of goods from Canada, citing alleged trade discrimination against multiple U.S. industries.

Those tariffs — on Canadian wine and beer, hockey sticks, cement, dog leashes and many other products — fall under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, a near-century-old authority that has rarely been invoked.

Canada, the U.S.' second-largest trading partner after Mexico, did not take the news well.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement Monday that Trump's 50% tariffs directly violate the North American trade pact known as the USMCA.

Carney said Tuesday that he and Trump spoke and agreed to intensify trade negotiations, while adding that all options are on the table if the U.S. follows through on the latest tariffs threat, Reuters reported.

Trump, a longtime advocate for using tariffs to bring in revenue and protect U.S. economic interests, last year implemented an array of import duties that drove U.S. tariff rates to new modern highs and stoked tit-for-tat trade disputes with other countries, including Canada and China.

The crown jewel of his protectionist agenda was "liberation day," a plan to unilaterally impose individualized tariff rates on nearly every other country all at once. Trump did just that in early April 2025 — and triggered a sudden market panic, forcing him to put the tariffs on pause days later.

Over the following months, the administration repeatedly tweaked, reimposed and re-delayed those tariffs. Then, on Feb. 20, the Supreme Court struck them down entirely, ruling that the law Trump invoked to implement the duties — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA — did not actually authorize them.

The ruling was a colossal blow to Trump's trade agenda: IEEPA-related duties accounted for the majority of U.S. tariff revenue collected last year.

But while the president raged against the ruling, he also suggested that it left the door open for him to impose more durable tariffs using established authorities.

"Our Supreme Court has made these Countries very happy but, as the Court pointed out, I have the absolute right to charge TARIFFS in another form, and have already started to do so," he wrote in a Truth Social post on March 15, days after his administration launched the Section 301 probes.

Peter Harrell, visiting scholar at Georgetown Law School's Institute of International Economic Law, said on LinkedIn that he expects the Trump administration will use its trade powers "to eventually restore most of the IEEPA tariff rates."

Trade experts told CNBC that tariffs imposed following a forced labor probe are likely to last a long time due to their stronger legal footing and the political risk that would come with eliminating them.

"It's much harder" for a future presidential administration "to roll back tariffs that are intended to help combat forced labor," Tiffany Smith, vice president of global trade policy at the National Foreign Trade Council, said. "I think you have to expect that the 301 tariffs are going to be much more durable."

Harden, of Washington Council Ernst & Young, said, "Politically, it's very hard to walk these things back once they're in place."