A U.S. plan to impose import tariffs and other measures against Colombia was suspended just hours after it was announced over the weekend, but the incident offers several insights about the Trump administration’s trade policy.
President Trump announced Jan. 26 that he would levy “emergency” tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Colombia after that country refused landing rights for U.S. military aircraft carrying deported immigrants. Trump threatened to increase those tariffs to 50 percent after a week if the situation was not resolved. The White House also announced enhanced inspections of imports from Colombia, visa and travel restrictions on Colombian government officials and their supporters, and “treasury, banking, and financial sanctions.”
However, later on Jan. 26 the two sides said they had resolved their disagreement, prompting the White House to announce that the “fully drafted” tariffs and sanctions would therefore “be held in reserve, and not signed.” The administration added that the enhanced CBP inspections (and visa and travel restrictions) would remain in effect “until the first planeload of Colombian deportees is successfully returned.”
A Yahoo Finance article analyzing the implications of this incident said it “showed that Trump intends to use a strategy of threatening tariffs first and then asking policy questions later.” The president has made similar threats with respect to Canada, Mexico, and China, which he has said could be subject to higher import tariffs as soon as Feb. 1 due to concerns over illegal narcotics and immigration. Tariff threats have also been lobbed at the European Union, Brazil, India, and other trading partners over unrelated policy issues.
The dust-up also appears to confirm that the White House will look to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for legal authority to impose potential tariff increases. IEEPA grants the president wide discretionary authority to address threats to national security, foreign policy, or the domestic economy from a source outside the U.S., and an administration press release specifically cited IEEPA as the authority for the tariffs and sanctions threatened against Colombia (possibly in light of the national emergency the president declared Jan. 20 with respect to illegal immigration). However, IEEPA has reportedly never been used to impose such restrictions before, and legislation to remove tariffs and quotas from the measures authorized under IEEPA was recently introduced in Congress, where there has been some bipartisan support for such legal limitations in the past.
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