US Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer said his agency would issue a notice in the Federal Register “shortly” to seek public comments on a Board of Trade with China, a formal step to establish a new mechanism to manage economic relations between the two nations.
“We’ll be putting out a Federal Register notice shortly,” Greer said at a Council on Foreign Relations event Tuesday. “I’ve seen it, I’ve looked at it, I’ve red-lined it personally, and it will be setting up what we’re going to do on the US side, which in the first instance is to put out a call for public comment.”
The US and China pledged to establish the Board of Trade and a separate Board of Investment during the summit earlier this month between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Many details about the boards, including what goods or sectors they will affect and the timeline for when they will be in place, remain unclear.
Greer on Tuesday reiterated that the Board of Trade would aim to see tariffs reduced on at least $30 billion in “non-sensitive goods” between the countries.
“To me it’s a positive step,” he said. “My assumption is that there is some amount, some minimum amount on each side that we agree, yeah, we should trade this.”
The boards were a key Trump administration goal for the summit, though it’s unclear how effectively those mechanisms will actually be in managing the longstanding differences between the US and China on economic matters. Washington and Beijing are in the middle of a trade truce that eased tensions following an escalating tariff war last year.
More broadly, Trump is seeking to rebuild his tariff barriers following the Supreme Court decision earlier this year that struck down country-by-country levies imposed under an emergency law. Trump has started trade probes under different powers to impose new levies, and in the immediate aftermath of the high court ruling implemented a 10% global levy under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
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While those 10% levies are set to expire in July, Greer on Tuesday suggested the administration could restart them if needed while the other inquiries continued.
“When you look at that statute, it says they expire, but doesn’t say when you can redo it,” he said. “Whether the 122 can be used — when it can be reused. I mean, I can’t imagine that Congress would say, well, this is just, you know, once per term, right?”
Tariffs under Section 122 are limited to a 15% rate and for 150 days but can be extended with congressional approval.
The 10% tariffs are the subject of a new legal battle. In a ruling earlier this month, the US Court of International Trade declared those global levies unlawful, delivering a fresh blow to Trump’s tariff agenda.
The decision only blocked the administration from enforcing the import taxes against two companies that had sued and Washington state. A federal appeals court subsequently paused the ruling as it weighs the administration’s request to allow officials to keep collecting the duties while the legal fight proceeds.
