The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said he would impose tariffs of 10% to imported wood and 25% to the kitchen cabinets, bathing dresses and upholstered furniture, continuing their tariff attack on global commercial partners.
The action is the first in three sectors that Trump said last week that they would receive new tariffs from October 1, including patented pharmaceutical imports and imports of heavy trucks. Monday’s proclamation establishes the beginning of wood and furniture duties two weeks later, at 12:01 AM EDT of October 14.
Trump signed a presidential proclamation exposing his argument that imports of wood, wood and furniture are eroding the national security of the United States to justify the new tariffs under Section 232 of the 1974 Commerce Law.
The growing use of section 232 by Trump occurs while waiting for a Supreme Court is pronounced on the legality of its most broad ‘reciprocal’ tariffs to global commercial partners, which two lower courts have annulled.
The proclamation said that tariff rates would begin on October 14, but added that tariffs would increase on January 1 to 30% for upholstered and 50% wood products for kitchen cabinets and dressers imported from countries that failed to reach an agreement with the United States.
Trump’s proclamation said that imports of wood products were weakening the economy of the United States, which resulted in the persistent threat of wooden factories and interruptions in the supply chains of wood products and a decrease in the use of the national wood industry of the United States.
“Due to the state of the United States timber industry, it is possible that the United States cannot meet the demands of wood products that are crucial for national defense and critical infrastructure,” said the statement.
The order added that wood products were used to “build infrastructure for operational tests, housing and storage for personnel and material, transport ammunition, as an ingredient in ammunition and as a component in antimile defense systems and thermal protection systems for nuclear reentry vehicles”.
You may be interested: US senators urge Tesla’s autonomous driving response research at rail crossings
The use of tariffs by Trump has been a characteristic of his second term
The use of tariffs by Trump has been a characteristic of his second term, launching new obstacles to the companies that already fight with interrupted supply chains, growing costs and uncertainty of the consumer. His administration has highlighted the increase in tariffs paid to government coffers.
The measure accumulates more tariffs on Canada, the largest soft wood supplier in the United States, where producers already face anti -dumping and combined antisubsid tariffs of around 35% due to a long data dispute over the wood extracted from Canadian public lands.
Canada, who hopes to negotiate tariff reductions in the United States through a broader renewal of the commercial agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada of 2020, has said that it would provide up to 1.2 billion Canadian dollars (870 million dollars) in aid to its soft wood producers to deal with previous tariffs.
Mexico and Vietnam are increasing wood furniture suppliers to the United States after Trump imposed tariffs of up to 25% of Chinese furniture products during their first mandate as of 2018, tariffs that since then have elevated to around 55% and now they could almost double for cabinets and dialogues.
Trump’s proclamation offered some countries that they have reached trade agreements for reducing tariffs with the United States.
He said that American tariffs on Great Britain’s wooden products would have a stop of 10% and those of the European Union and Japan would have a cap of 15%, in line with the base tariff rate in those frame agreements.
But Trump’s statement did not mention its commercial agreement with Vietnam for a tariff rate of 20% in July, an agreement that has not yet been formally documented.
In April, after the Commerce Department opened the National Security investigation into wood imports in the United States, the United States Chamber of Commerce announced its opposition to any restriction to imports of wood, wood and its derived products, including wood pulp, paper and cardboard.
“Imports of these goods do not represent a risk to national security,” the Chamber wrote. “The imposition of tariffs on these goods would increase costs for American companies and housing construction, would undermine the success of exports enjoyed by the United States paper industry and reduce income in many US communities.”
With Reuters information.
Follow us on Google News to always keep you informed
