{"id":3604,"date":"2026-07-17T07:39:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=3604"},"modified":"2026-07-17T07:39:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T07:39:45","slug":"tariff-mans-money-machine-broke-now-hes-trying-to-fix-it-with-a-forced-labor-crusade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=3604","title":{"rendered":"Tariff Man\u2019s money machine broke. Now he\u2019s trying to fix it with a forced\u2011labor crusade"},"content":{"rendered":"
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But the money dried up after the\u00a0Supreme Court struck down\u00a0the biggest and boldest of Trump\u2019s tariffs in February.<\/p>\n

Read more How Apollo-owned Michaels turned two rivals\u2019 bankruptcies into a growth strategy<\/a><\/p>\n

The question now is: Can the president\u2019s trade team make good on its promise to replace the lost revenue?<\/p>\n

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A deadline is approaching rapidly.<\/p>\n

After the Supreme Court setback, the president turned first to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose 10% tariffs globally. But Section 122 only authorizes tariffs for 150 days. Trump\u2019s expire on July 24. Congress would have to extend those tariffs \u2014 something lawmakers are unlikely to do as the Nov. 3 midterm elections approach amid voter discontent over the high cost of living.<\/p>\n

But the administration has more durable options: Section 301 of the same 1974 trade law permits the president to impose tariffs and other sanctions against countries found to engage in \u201cunjustifiable,\u201d \u201cunreasonable\u201d or \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d trade practices. Trump used Section 301 to impose big tariffs on China in his first term and is rolling them out again \u2014 as recently as late Wednesday when he announced\u00a025% tariffs on some Brazilian imports, charging the world\u2019s 11th-biggest economy with a host of unfair trade practices.<\/p>\n

Trade attorneys and analysts are confident the tariff-happy Trump administration will manage to beat the clock and swap out Section 122 tariffs with bigger Section 301 tariffs by the July 24 deadline. \u201cThey\u2019re going to raise the tariff wall again,\u2019\u2019 said trade lawyer Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a trade official in Trump\u2019s first administration and in President Joe Biden\u2019s.<\/p>\n

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Trump last year tested \u2013 and exceeded \u2013 the limits of his authority to impose import taxes, a power the U.S. Constitution gives Congress. He invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to slap big tariffs on most of the world\u2019s countries.<\/p>\n

He justified the levies, which marked a stunning reversal of decades of U.S. policy in favor of lower tariffs and freer trade, by labeling America\u2019s longstanding trade deficits a national emergency.<\/p>\n

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The Supreme Court didn\u2019t buy it, ruling in February that the president couldn\u2019t use the emergency powers law to impose tariffs at all. The legal defeat meant the administration had to\u00a0send refunds to importers\u00a0that had paid the levies.<\/p>\n

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As a result, tariffs have at least temporarily gone from a windfall to a drain on the Treasury.<\/p>\n

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Revenue from import taxes peaked at more than $31.4 billion last October. Then, after the Supreme Court ruling, it started dwindling \u2013 to $22 billion in both March and April. As\u00a0refund checks\u00a0went out faster than revenue from the Section 122 and other tariffs came in, the number turned negative: A small ($42 million) shortfall in May was followed by a whopping $25.6 billion loss in June.<\/p>\n

Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have vowed to use other legal authorities to recoup the lost income.<\/p>\n

Read more Only 12% of testosterone prescriptions are medically necessary \u2014\u00a0and Trump wants to make that ratio even smaller<\/a><\/p>\n

Enter Section 301, which gives the president power to impose \u2013 and adjust \u2013 tariffs in response to other countries\u2019 trade practices. But the administration must first check procedural boxes \u2013 collecting comments and holding hearings. There are no limits on Section 301 tariffs. They expire after four years but can be renewed.<\/p>\n

So the president has flexibility in how he uses the Section 301 tariffs. Trump can still change them \u2014 after clearing procedural hurdles \u2014 but he can\u2019t impose or move them up or down on a whim as he often did with the IEEPA tariffs. Uncertainty over Trump\u2019s tariff policy has vexed businesses, leaving them hesitant to make investments and decisions because they don\u2019t know what the trade rules are going to be.<\/p>\n

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A switch to rule-bound 301 tariffs would mean \u201cthere\u2019s less uncertainty but not no uncertainty,\u2019\u2019 said Sarah Bianchi, a former U.S. trade official who is now chief strategist of international political affairs at the investment research firm Evercore ISI.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has turned to two big Section 301 investigations in its campaign to replace lost tariff revenue. One accuses 60 countries, accounting for 99% of U.S. imports, of failing to do enough to crack down on imports created by forced labor. The other is investigating whether 16 U.S. trading partners \u2014 including China, the European Union and Japan \u2014 are overproducing goods, driving down worldwide prices and putting American manufacturers at a disadvantage.<\/p>\n

The administration has already decided what it wants to do about the forced labor issue.\u00a0Invoking Section 301 last month, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer proposed tariffs \u2014 10% on 16 countries and 12.5% on 44 \u2014 that are the same or slightly higher than the 10% Section 122 levies they would replace. But Greer\u2019s office is still receiving public comments on the proposed tariffs and has not imposed them yet.<\/p>\n

Nathaniel Halvorson, a partner at the Baker McKenzie law firm and a former U.S. trade official, expects Greer\u2019s office will manage to get the forced-labor levies in place in time so that there won\u2019t be much, if any, \u201cdaylight\u2019\u2019 between them and the expiring Section 122 tariffs. \u201cReally, they\u2019re operating about as fast as legally possible,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

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The administration has not yet completed the other Section 301 investigation into alleged overproduction by 16 countries. Trade attorney Majerus expects the administration to propose more big tariffs in that case, likely in a month or two. He suspects they will be timed to take effect only after the midterm elections \u201cfor obvious reasons.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Trump, who has proudly called himself \u201cTariff Man,\u2019\u2019 has made it clear that he is seeking to bring back the big, worldwide import taxes he\u2019d imposed in 2025. So the new 301 investigations look like a pretext to do that and might be vulnerable in court, Bianchi said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSection 301s have been pretty legally durable,\u201d she said. \u201cBut no one has tried to use it to basically put in place universal tariffs. I think there will be legal challenges.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Read more Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin is boosting employee pay to compete with SpaceX\u2014but an advisor warns of \u2018golden handcuffs\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the Supreme Court killed his emergency\u2011powers import taxes and forced massive refunds, Trump is racing to meet a July 24 deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tariffs"],"yoast_head":"\nTariff Man\u2019s money machine broke. 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