Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., asks for documentation behind the Trump administration’s decisions to impose global steel and aluminum tariffs and separate tariffs on China.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee ranking member Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., on Wednesday filed a resolution of inquiry seeking documents and/or records from the Trump administration that might shed light on the executive branch’s decisions to impose Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum and Section 301 tariffs on a planned total of $250 billion in annual value of goods from China.
House rules contain no specific provision enforcing the release of documents by the executive branch pursuant to such resolutions, and there have been several instances in which officers have refused or declined to provide the sought information, according to a Government Publishing Office document.
Center for Strategic and International Studies senior adviser Bill Reinsch said it would be difficult for Ways and Means Democrats to get the documents from the Trump administration, considering that the filed resolution isn’t an official committee request and is coming from a Democrat, likely translating to a perception from the administration that it is a partisan action.
“I don’t think they can separate it from the politics,” Reinsch said during an interview with American Shipper. “They’ll view it as a partisan thing, whether it is or isn’t. So if the law doesn’t require them to be provided, I suspect that they’ll have a hard time providing them. And a committee request has to be taken seriously, but this isn’t a committee request, because it doesn’t come from the chairman.”
The full Ways and Means Committee has 14 legislative days from the date of the resolution’s introduction on Wednesday to consider the resolution, and if the committee has not acted on it within that time frame, the resolution can move to the House floor for consideration.
Specifically, the resolution of inquiry calls for the president to send to the House “any and all documents in draft or final form, including reports, memos, spreadsheets and slide deck presentations” in the executive branch’s possession related to the methodology behind Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs.
The resolution seeks information on why President Donald Trump choose to impose 25 percent global tariffs on steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum even though the Commerce Department’s January-released Section 232 reports recommended 24 percent and 7.7 percent tariffs on those metals, respectively.
The measure also seeks information on actions the Trump administration took on a bilateral or multilateral basis to address unfair Chinese technology transfer and intellectual property-related trade practices before imposing the initial set of Section 301 tariffs — covering $34 billion worth of goods in 2017 import value — on China on July 6. Pascrell’s resolution also asks what such bilateral or multilateral actions the United States has taken since imposition of the tariffs.
Finally, the measure seeks information on actions the administration has considered taking to offset harm to U.S. exporters facing overseas tariffs imposed in retaliation to the United States’ Section 232 and Section 301 measures.
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and ranking member Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., on June 13 wrote a letter asking the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) to submit a reportedly completed analysis showing that Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs would hurt U.S. economic growth, after The New York Times reported on the apparent existence of the document on June 7.
Another document at least somewhat related to the administration’s decision-making on tariffs was drafted by Peter Navarro last year naming several socioeconomic consequences that a weakened manufacturing base apparently leads to, which The Washington Post reported on in October.
According to The Washington Post report, the document showed that a weakened manufacturing sector leads to an increase in abortion, spousal abuse, divorce and higher crime.
“Tariffs can be an effective enforcement tool if they are used to accomplish clearly defined goals and not merely fashioned as a weapon,” said Rep. Pascrell. “The Trump administration’s tariff policy has been chaotic. … Passing this resolution of inquiry can help shed light on the administration’s rationale for the scope of the tariffs put in place and what strategy, if any, the administration has in mind.”
House resolution seeks Trump tariff strategy data
