By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A majority of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted to confirm Jamieson Greer as U.S. Trade Representative, putting the veteran of President Donald Trump’s first-term trade wars fully on the job just days ahead of a March 4 deadline for punishing 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico.
With voting on the Senate floor still underway, Greer had secured more than the majority needed to confirm his nomination.
Greer, a Washington trade lawyer who served as chief of staff to former USTR Robert Lighthizer, is set to take office as Mexican and Canadian officials were working to persuade the Trump administration that their efforts to secure U.S. borders were working to halt inflows of migrants, fentanyl and the deadly opioid’s precursor chemicals.
Trump initially threatened the North American tariffs by declaring a February 1 national emergency over immigration and fentanyl under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, using the same action to punish China with 10% tariffs over the fentanyl trade.
But over the past month, Trump’s tariff actions have mushroomed, including raising effective steel tariffs back up to 25% by rescinding exemptions and raising aluminum tariffs to the same level. These would launch on March 12 and hit Canada and Mexico the hardest.
Trump on Tuesday launched a new tariff probe into copper imports, just days after reviving investigations aimed at imposing tariffs on countries that levy digital services taxes on U.S. technology firms. And Greer will help lead an effort ordered by Trump to determine higher “reciprocal” U.S. tariff rates to match other countries’ import duties and offset non-tariff trade barriers.
RENEGOTIATING USMCA
Some trade experts have said a possible outcome of next week’s Canada and Mexico tariff deadline could be the launch of an early renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, the revamped trade deal launched by Trump in 2020. The trade deal is due to be reviewed by 2026.
But Trump said on Monday that the tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods are “on time and on schedule”.
Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley has said the tariffs would “blow a hole” in the U.S. auto industry, which has operations in all three countries with parts and vehicles crisscrossing borders.
Greer told senators during his Senate confirmation hearing that he wanted to quickly renegotiate the USMCA to ensure that China does not use the agreement as a back door to the U.S. market to avoid other tariffs.
“Right out of the gate, I expect that we’ll be taking a second look at the USMCA,” Greer said.
Asked what changes he would like to see in the pact, Greer zeroed in on further tightening automotive content rules.
“I think we should look at the rule of origin for automobiles and aerospace and other things to look and see if we need to have any kind of restriction on content or value added from foreign countries of concern, or non-market economies,” he said, using language that U.S. trade officials often use to describe China.
“Countries that benefit from unfair trading practices or subsidies and somehow get their content into goods that are going across the border.”
Greer helped negotiate the revamp of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement during Trump’s first term, which increased the regional automotive components content level to 75% from 62.5% and required minimum levels of U.S. content.
He also helped implement Trump’s 2018 and 2019 tariffs of up to 25% on some $370 billion worth of Chinese imports at the time over intellectual property misappropriation. Former U.S. President Joe Biden kept these in place and added steep tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, solar cells and semiconductors.
(Reporting by David Lawder; additional reporting by Bo Erickson; Editing by Dan Burns)
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