President Donald Trump’s tariff “strategy is already bearing fruit,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer plans to tell Congress on Tuesday, pointing specifically to three countries that he said have offered trade concessions after being threatened with higher U.S. duties.
“Nearly 50 countries have approached me to discuss the president’s new policy and explore how to achieve reciprocity,” Greer says in prepared testimony obtained by POLITICO. “Several of these countries, such as Argentina, Vietnam and Israel, have suggested they will reduce their tariffs and non-tariff barriers.”
“These obviously are welcome moves,” Greer continues, while also citing recent auto industry plans to employ more American workers “Our large and persistent trade deficit has been over 30 years in the making, and it will not be resolved overnight, but all of this is in the right direction.”
Greer will testify Tuesday before the Senate Finance Committee, and Wednesday before House Ways and Means. The annual hearings on the president’s trade agenda are attracting increased attention this year following Trump’s decision last week to impose a baseline tariff of 10 percent on nearly all imports and tariffs ranging up to 50 percent on 60 trading partners that have the biggest trade surpluses with the U.S., which the Trump administration argues is a sign of unfair trade relations.
Trump’s tariff action has triggered a major financial market selloff and increased the risk of a recession, due to increased costs of imports and lost export sales as countries, such as China, retaliate against American goods. In addition, Trump and members of his administration have sent mixed signals about whether the tariffs are here to stay or can be negotiated away in exchange for other countries reducing their own barriers.
Greer, in his prepared remarks, defends Trump’s action, which he describes as “the most significant in change in U.S. trade policy since we allowed China to joined the World Trade Organization” in 2001. He blamed that “disastrous decision” and others like it for the loss of 5 million manufacturing jobs and 90,000 factories since 1994, although advances in technology and increased mechanization are also responsible for some of the job losses.
He also outlines a vision of where Trump wants to lead the economy, despite warnings that higher tariffs will increase prices for consumers and make American companies less competitive in international market as well as strain relations with the rest of the world.
“We must move away from an economy based solely on the financial sector and government spending and we must become an economy based on producing real goods and services,” Greer says. “This adjustment may be challenging at times. It is a moment of drastic, overdue change, but I am confident the American people will rise to the occasion as they have done before.”
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