U.S. expected to delay new excess capacity tariff announcement until after Trump-Xi summit: report

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (Yonhap) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is expected to postpone the announcement of new tariffs over trading partners’ alleged excess capacity in manufacturing sectors until after the planned summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping next week, a report said Thursday.

Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported on the expected delay, noting that the reason for the delay is unclear, as Trump is expected to have a summit with Xi in Washington on Sept. 24, more than four months after their previous meeting in Beijing.

Bloomberg previously reported that the Trump administration intended to issue a trade report on excess manufacturing capacity before next week’s Trump-Xi summit, and that the report would recommend a 7.5 percent tariff on Chinese products.

In March, the administration launched a trade investigation into South Korea, China, Japan and 13 other economies to uncover “unfair” trade practices related to “structural” excess capacity and production, a move that might result in tariffs.

In the same month, it opened a separate investigation into 60 economies, including South Korea, China and Japan, to determine whether their governments have taken sufficient steps to ban the importation of goods produced with forced labor.

In July, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced its final decision to impose new tariffs of up to 12.5 percent on South Korea, Japan and 58 other trading partners over forced labor concerns.

The administration carried out the investigations over alleged excess capacity and forced labor concerns under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, as it pushed to roll out new duties to replace the country-specific emergency tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down in February.