US Trade Probes Will Conclude Within Five Months, Greer Says

The US plans to complete several trade investigations that will allow President Donald Trump to impose new tariffs within five months to replace the levies struck down by the Supreme Court, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said.

Greer’s comments on Tuesday offered the most concrete timeline yet for how long the White House will need to rebuild Trump’s tariff regime. After the Feb. 20 court ruling, the president applied a global baseline tariff, which he can maintain for as many as 150 days without congressional approval.

“By the time the five-month period has elapsed, we’ll have completed investigations,” Greer said during a White House meeting between Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “We know there are countries out there with deals who are very interested in keeping the deals.”

In order to do that, Greer said, “we need to go through and investigate all these unfair trading practices” and “make sure that we’re protecting US economic security.” Greer said the probes will be conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which permits the White House to impose tariffs in response to foreign countries deemed to restrict US commerce.

The US has conducted Section 301 investigations into China, Brazil and Nicaragua. Greer did not say which other countries would be targeted.

“We’re doing the various studies and things, and we’ll be coming out with tariffs, different tariffs on different countries,” Trump said.

US trading partners have been eager for details on how Trump plans to proceed with tariffs after the Supreme Court’s decision set off another round of global trade uncertainty. Officials from several major economies have expressed concern that Trump’s plans could violate agreements they struck last year for lower duties.

Trump applied an initial 10% duty under Section 122 of the Trade Act, and has said he plans to increase that rate to the highest possible level allowed under that law, 15%, though the administration has not implemented that higher rate. The European Union late last month froze ratification of its trade deal with the US, with lawmakers saying they need more clarity from the Trump administration in order to proceed.

In addition to Section 301, the Trump administration is also planning probes under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the president to impose levies based on national security concerns. The administration believes that tariffs imposed under those authorities would be more likely to withstand legal scrutiny.

Trump joked that he wanted Greer to hit Merz “very, very hard” under his new tariff policy, before saying he believed most countries wanted to retain the agreements they struck before the Supreme Court decision.

“They all want to stay in the deal, and so we’ll probably be able to do that pretty easily,” Trump said.