The US Senate has confirmed Jamieson Greer, a veteran of President Donald Trump’s first-term economic battles with China, Mexico and Canada, to be America’s top trade negotiator.
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As US trade representative, Greer will work with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a billionaire financier, to oversee Trump’s aggressive trade agenda. Greer’s nomination cleared the Senate by a 56-43 vote on Wednesday.
Trump is an enthusiastic supporter of taxes – tariffs – on imports in an effort to protect US industry, raise revenue for the US Treasury and coerce other countries into making concessions on issues ranging from trade to tax policy to immigration.
The Republican president is planning to start taxing Canadian and Mexican imports at 25 per cent on March 4, though he said on Wednesday that the tariffs would be implemented on April 2.
It was not clear if the president meant that he was giving the countries additional time, or had conflated the Canada and Mexico tariffs with a separate programme that would impose so-called reciprocal tariffs on nations across the world.
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Trump unveils reciprocal blanket tariffs review of all major US trading partners
Trump unveils reciprocal blanket tariffs review of all major US trading partners
In addition, Trump plans to remove the exemptions on his 2018 steel and aluminium tariffs, taxing imports of both metals at 25 per cent.