The Trump administration has launched an investigation into imports of robotics, industrial machinery and medical devices in a bid to introduce fresh new tariffs.
The Department of Commerce is conducting the probes under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, according to the Federal Register. The inquiries started on Sept. 2 will allow President Trump to tariff goods deemed critical to national security.
Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday touted US “levers” that he said could give the Trump administration an upper hand toward striking a broad trade deal with China.
The US and China are in the final stages of negotiations for a “huge” Boeing (BA) aircraft deal that could end up as a “centerpiece” of a broader trade agreement between the nations.
“We’re not without levers on our side. We have plenty of products that they depend on us for,” Bessent said on Fox Business. He noted aircraft engines and parts, along with certain chemicals and plastics and silicon ingredients.
The US and China have made progress toward various contours of a broader deal following a call between Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping. Trump said after that call that the countries had reached an agreement to spin off the TikTok app in the US, with the White House later naming Oracle (ORCL) as part of the consortium of investors.
Trump said the two leaders plan to conduct a series of meetings in the coming months, as Yahoo Finance’s Ben Werschkul reported.
In the background, the Supreme Court is reviewing a high-stakes legal challenge to President Trump’s tariffs, setting up a resolution as early as this fall.
The tariffs at stake are the sweeping “reciprocal,” country-specific duties Trump has outlined in various steps this year (which you can see in the graphic above). Those duties range from 10% to 50%. Trump has used a 1977 law known as “IEEPA” — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — to justify imposing the tariffs.
The appeals court allowed the tariffs to stay in place while the case moves through the legal process.
Read more: What Trump’s tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet
Here are the latest updates as the policy reverberates around the world.
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Trade Representative Maros Sefcovic said on Thursday that European automakers are set to save up to $700 million a month now that the EU-US trade deal is in place.
AP reports:
