Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined the initiative during a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, 21 October, following discussions among EU leaders over growing global trade imbalances.
The proposal would form part of a wider package addressing economic dependence on foreign suppliers and attempts by third countries to exert commercial pressure on individual EU member states. Although the Commission has not yet published detailed legislation, the announcement signals Brussels’ intention to expand its capacity to intervene in international trade disputes.
European manufacturers have faced increasing competition from imported products in sectors including chemicals, machinery, vehicles, steel and industrial components.
Much of the concern centres on China, where extensive manufacturing capacity and government support have enabled companies to expand their presence in international markets.
European producers argue that differences in subsidies, production costs and market access place them at a competitive disadvantage.
According to the European Commission, the EU’s goods trade deficit with China exceeded €1 billion per day in 2025.
Von der Leyen has described the imbalance as unsustainable and argued that European trade policy must respond more effectively to market distortions.
During her 21st October address to Parliament, she confirmed that the Commission was working on additional safeguards intended to address sudden increases in imports affecting European businesses.
The proposed measures follow a Franco-German initiative calling for stronger instruments to counter systemic economic imbalances.
France and Germany have urged Brussels to act more quickly where existing trade investigations and enforcement procedures prove insufficient.
The announcement follows recent negotiations between Brussels and Beijing aimed at reducing tensions over industrial competition.
Earlier this month, the two sides reached an arrangement restricting Chinese hybrid vehicle exports to the European market.
As EU Today reported on 13rd October, the agreement established an annual ceiling of 350,000 vehicles, potentially reducing Chinese manufacturers’ expected market access.
However, European officials acknowledge that restrictions covering a single automotive category cannot resolve the wider trade imbalance.
Other industries remain concerned about Chinese production capacity, including chemicals, machinery and manufactured components.
Beijing has warned against further unilateral European restrictions, arguing that protectionist measures could damage commercial relations.
The Chinese authorities have also demonstrated a willingness to pursue trade investigations involving European products.
As previous EU Today coverage established, China opened an anti-dumping investigation into an EU chemical product in early October, adding to existing commercial disputes.
Further European restrictions could therefore prompt additional Chinese countermeasures affecting exporters from member states.
The proposed market-access mechanism is intended to give Brussels greater scope to act when existing safeguards cannot address economic threats quickly enough.
However, its legal structure, enforcement thresholds and relationship with existing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy legislation have not yet been specified.
The EU already possesses several trade-defence instruments, including duties against unfairly priced or subsidised products and safeguards designed to protect industries from damaging import surges.
Those mechanisms generally require formal investigations and evidence demonstrating the conditions for intervention.
The new proposal could introduce a faster response, but questions remain over how any restrictions would comply with international trade obligations and the EU’s commitments under World Trade Organisation rules.
Member states would also have to consider the consequences for European businesses that depend on imported materials, components and finished goods.
The Commission’s strategy extends beyond restrictions on imports. Von der Leyen confirmed that a separate initiative, known as DiversifyEU, would be presented in December.
The programme is intended to help European companies reduce excessive dependence on individual suppliers and countries, particularly where critical raw materials and strategic technologies are involved.
The Commission also plans a solidarity mechanism designed to assist member states and industries facing external economic coercion or retaliation. Such arrangements could become relevant when a foreign government targets exports from a particular member state in response to an EU policy decision.
The initiative follows growing concern that Europe’s access to strategically important industrial supplies can be disrupted through export controls or political disputes.
The Commission will still have to translate the proposed measures into legislation and secure sufficient political support among member states and the European Parliament.
National governments have different commercial relationships with China and varying levels of dependence on imported industrial goods. Countries with substantial export markets in China may be particularly concerned about retaliation, while manufacturers facing foreign competition are likely to press for faster intervention.
The Commission must also determine whether new trade powers should be exercised centrally in Brussels or require additional approval from national governments. For European industry, the immediate question is whether the new mechanism can provide effective protection without increasing production costs through restrictions on essential imports.
The Commission’s forthcoming legislative proposals will establish how far the EU intends to move towards a more interventionist trade policy.
Visa quotas, university fees and NHS surcharges remain sticking points ahead of post-Brexit negotiations next month
A deadline for a youth mobility scheme between the EU and the UK could be deferred by six months in a bid to ensure Andy Burnham has a successful “reset” summit on 20 November, diplomats have said.
EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday heard that the UK was still insisting on international tuition fees, quotas and an NHS surcharge for EU students. This has fuelled fears the summit could fail, just as the prime minister is promising to unveil a new vision for Britain’s long-term relationship with the EU.
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© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
Visa quotas, university fees and NHS surcharges remain sticking points ahead of post-Brexit negotiations next month
A deadline for a youth mobility scheme between the EU and the UK could be deferred by six months in a bid to ensure Andy Burnham has a successful “reset” summit on 20 November, diplomats have said.
EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday heard that the UK was still insisting on international tuition fees, quotas and an NHS surcharge for EU students. This has fuelled fears the summit could fail, just as the prime minister is promising to unveil a new vision for Britain’s long-term relationship with the EU.
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© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
© Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
Of all the arguments for protectionism, the infant industry argument probably has the strongest theoretical appeal. By protecting a new industry from its more developed foreign competition, the story goes, tariffs give domestic producers the time to grow, learn, and become efficient enough to stand on their own. Domestic consumers feel the short-term pains of higher prices, but they enjoy the long-term gains of job growth and lower prices as the new industry blossoms.
It's no secret that tariffs have driven significant price increases over the last year and a half. A study from the New York Federal Reserve finds that tariffs "contributed 2.9 percentage points to goods price inflation" and that without tariffs those prices would have slightly declined. Tariff defenders, looking for a new reason to claim these higher prices are only temporary, have reimagined the infant industry argument. Now it's being used to support trade barriers in industries that are over a century old, but the promise is exactly the same: Domestic firms need the protection so they can compete, innovate, and cut costs until prices come back down even further than they were before the tariffs.
Michael Brendan Dougherty recently made such an argument in National Review, arguing that "tariffs can, over time, bring prices below where they started." When economist Don Boudreaux called the argument "bizarre," Dougherty replied that critics had failed to acknowledge the dynamic process by which markets respond to tariffs "by adapting and cutting costs." Although he is light on specific details, he posits that the changed incentives of a "paradigm shift" in tariff policy will spur domestic competition, leading to the theorized price reduction. Of course, firms would still respond to the dynamic processes of domestic competition without a tariff wall, but the point stands.
From there, the reworked infant industry argument becomes the standard version advanced more than two centuries ago by Alexander Hamilton and his disciple Friedrich List. When Hamilton made this claim in 1791, his argument may have seemed suitable for a new nation seeking to firm up its economy and security against established European powers.
Others at the time pointed out that special interest groups—a manifestation of the "violence of faction" so thoroughly dissected in the Federalist Papers—had already begun to coalesce around the fledgling iron industry in Pennsylvania, clamoring for protective tariffs. Two years earlier, James Madison had warned about a "premature policy of stimulating manufactures" driving tariffs too high. In the end, Hamilton recommended and Congress enacted a far more moderate tariff schedule than his theoretical musings portended. American iron manufacturers received a consolation prize of a higher tariff on their competitors than the rate for most general imports. Hamiltonians have been touting the infant industry argument ever since.
Nearly 250 years later, those same infants apparently have yet to advance into adulthood. Steel, the direct successor to the founding-era iron manufacturers, remains a singular focus of President Donald Trump's protectionist tariff policies, just as it was under former President Joe Biden. And former President George W. Bush before him. Indeed, steel has been a recurring beneficiary of protectionism for most of America's existence.
This extended period of protectionist infancy suggests that the argument needs a new name. We propose the "Peter Pan industry argument" for companies that never grow up because tariffs make sure they never have to.
The question tariff advocates rarely ask is: Why do some American producers have higher costs than foreign rivals even in the face of lower-cost foreign competition? The answer comes down to specific rules and choices within particular firms and industries. Tariffs, and protectionism in general, address none of these. No industry illustrates this like steel, but it is far from the only one.
In 1947, United Steelworkers won a contract provision known as Section 2-B. Among other things, this barred mill managers from changing established work practices unless new technology required it. Steel companies tried to get rid of this in 1959, finding it difficult (given union incentives) to establish that technology required change. In response, 500,000 steelworkers went on strike for 116 days. This strike sent buyers abroad, causing 1959 to be the first year the U.S. imported more steel than it exported. One of the then-new technologies that was delayed was basic oxygen furnaces, which could produce steel far faster and cheaper than the open-hearth furnaces that were so common. In 1965, only about 17 percent of steel made in the U.S. was made using the basic oxygen furnace. Japan produced 55 percent of its steel with this faster, more efficient method.
Change finally came from a steel customer. Vulcraft, a maker of steel joists, grew tired of paying Big Steel's prices and waiting for Big Steel's deliveries. In 1969, free from steel unions and preconceived notions, the company looked for new steel-producing technologies and found the answer in the electric arc furnaces that had been adopted in much of the world throughout the 1950s and '60s. Vulcraft's parent company later renamed itself Nucor, and minimills like the ones it pioneered now make most of America's steel.
So the modern steel industry was built by a frustrated steel buyer who found a way around protected companies. In other words, the U.S. steel industry has lagged behind the technologies found around the world.
We could go on, but the broad point here is that the "relatively higher domestic production costs that made the tariff 'necessary' in the first place," as one critic put it, are often the result of preventing competition in the first place. It's odd to suggest that further preventing competition through tariffs will somehow alleviate the ills of already-prevented competition.
Tariff advocates fail to acknowledge that the ability to import steel also comes with the benefit of access to cheaper steel for steel-using industries, such as manufacturing. A 50 percent tariff on steel further closes the release valve that imported steel offers. Buyers of steel are then left to purchase more of the more expensive domestic steel. Because new steel mills take years to bring online, this causes delays and longer delivery times for manufacturers.
We don't have to wonder what happens when a country lowers its tariffs on materials used by manufacturers. India did this in the '90s, and researchers found that newly available inputs accounted for 31 percent of the new products that Indian manufacturers introduced. And what happens when the U.S. imposes tariffs on steel? Downstream U.S. firms become less competitive. This is why American businesses clamor for exemptions to tariffs, especially for tariffs on materials like steel.
Perhaps all this could be forgiven if tariffs advanced national security concerns, as tariff advocates assert. They point out that an adversarial nation could cut off supplies of critical materials during wartime and cripple America's ability to defend itself. Unfortunately, tariffs fail there too.
First, this conflates production with access. While domestic production does ensure domestic access, access can be secured without production. In the case of steel, the Commerce Department reports that in 2025, the U.S. imported steel from 79 countries, with Canada being our top foreign supplier. The top 10 sources of steel are responsible for 77.8 percent of America's steel imports. None of those countries were considered adversaries—at least not until the tariff crusades pushed these friends away. What's more, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute, only 23 percent of finished steel in the U.S. was imported in 2024. Far from being exposed to foreign states' whims, American access to steel is incredibly resilient.
Second, this view ignores the positive effects of trade and globalization on national security. The Center for Strategic & International Studies finds that increased trade between countries reduces the likelihood that they'll go to war against one another. Globalization helps ensure that domestic access continues unabated should war break out, thanks to the diversity of trading partners.
When Hamilton made the infant industry argument, he at least assured us that the industry would at some point advance to adulthood and stand on its own. Steel, like so many other Peter Pan industries, has proven Madison right. These industries have refused to grow up, and it's time to stop pretending that tariffs will fix that.
The post Peter Pan Tariffs for Companies That Never Grow Up appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Defence secretary says Britain must manufacture at scale as Germany’s Rheinmetall opens Midlands factory
For the last 20 years, Britain was unable to put a barrel on its tanks without buying from abroad. Relying on foreign allies seemed like a reasonable choice during years of relative security (for wealthy countries at least) after the end of the cold war.
But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has changed the calculation – and prompted a scramble to rearm among European countries, including the UK.
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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
The Council adopted its position on 21st October, proposing an exemption from the obligation to appoint an authorised representative in another EU country when the amount of packaging placed on that country’s market remains below one tonne per calendar year.
The measure addresses complaints from small and medium-sized enterprises that the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, which became applicable on 12th August 2026, creates unnecessary expenses for companies engaged in relatively modest volumes of cross-border commerce.
The proposal forms part of the EU’s eighth legislative simplification package and will now be negotiated with the European Parliament.
Under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, businesses placing packaging or packaged products on the European market are subject to obligations concerning waste management and extended producer responsibility.
The extended producer responsibility system requires producers to contribute to the management of waste generated by products and packaging placed on the market.
For businesses operating across borders, the framework also includes requirements concerning authorised representatives in member states where producers are not established.
These representatives perform specified compliance functions and provide a point of contact for national authorities.
The system can create substantial administrative obligations for businesses trading in several countries, particularly when the quantity of packaging supplied to individual markets is limited.
A small Belgian retailer, for example, may sell products to customers in Germany, France and the Netherlands without maintaining physical operations in those countries.
The requirement to arrange representation separately across different markets can add compliance costs regardless of whether the volume of trade justifies them.
Under the Council’s proposal, eligible EU-based producers placing less than one tonne of packaging annually on another member state’s market could be exempted from appointing a representative there.
The threshold would be assessed by reference to the quantity placed on the market of the member state concerned.
However, the proposed exemption would not abolish the wider principle of extended producer responsibility or automatically release businesses from their other environmental obligations.
The regulatory changes come only two months after the EU’s revised packaging framework began applying across the single market.
The legislation, Regulation (EU) 2025/40, is intended to reduce packaging waste, improve recyclability and establish more consistent requirements for products and packaging materials.
It covers an extensive range of commercial activities, including manufacturing, retail, food distribution, transport packaging and online sales.
As EU Today reported when the regulation began applying in August, the legislation introduces new requirements affecting packaging design, materials and waste prevention.
However, the practical implications for smaller firms have generated pressure for modifications.
In September, EU Today examined the emerging campaign for simplification, as business organisations questioned whether the compliance system adequately reflected the circumstances of smaller producers.
The Council’s latest agreement represents a further legislative step, replacing general calls for administrative relief with a specific negotiating position.
The Commission also issued detailed implementation guidance in June 2026 after receiving numerous questions from member states and businesses about how the regulation should be interpreted.
The proposed exemption would not apply without conditions.
The Council’s negotiating mandate includes a safeguard allowing the relevant authorities to respond when a producer fails to comply with extended producer responsibility obligations.
It also provides for the European Commission to review the duration of the temporary suspension by 31st December 2030, ahead of its scheduled expiry in 2032.
The timetable reflects the possibility that broader reform of producer responsibility arrangements could replace the temporary measure.
The Commission is preparing a Circular Economy Act intended to address additional problems affecting Europe’s recycling and secondary raw materials markets.
That initiative could provide a more comprehensive framework for the administration of producer responsibility systems across member states.
For now, the Council has opted for a narrower intervention designed to reduce the immediate burden on smaller companies without reopening the entire packaging regulation.
The proposal also reflects a broader problem with European regulatory integration.
Although companies can sell goods throughout the single market, compliance requirements often remain administered through national systems, requiring businesses to deal with separate authorities and procedures.
For multinational corporations, such costs can be distributed across substantial commercial operations. For smaller exporters and online retailers, similar administrative requirements can consume a much greater proportion of turnover.
The Council argues that removing unnecessary representation requirements would support cross-border trade while preserving the objectives of European environmental legislation.
The Irish presidency will now seek agreement with the European Parliament on the proposed amendment.
Until that legislation is adopted and becomes applicable, businesses must continue to comply with the existing rules, including relevant national producer responsibility requirements.
Last July, President Donald Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on various Canadian goods, a list he subsequently expanded to include additional imports, some of which he banned outright. His legal justification was Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which Congress approved in 1930. Section 338 authorized tariffs in response to discriminatory trade practices. But in the 96 years since it was enacted, no president had ever used it to impose tariffs.
Why is that? According to a lawsuit that the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) filed on Tuesday in the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT), the answer is clear: Section 338 was superseded by subsequent legislation that likewise targeted discriminatory trade barriers, beginning with the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 and culminating in Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Section 301, the current remedy, includes requirements that Trump apparently sought to dodge by invoking Section 338 instead.
That maneuver is illegal, the LJC argues. "Congress already gave the executive branch a tool for responding to unfair foreign trade practices: Section 301, which requires an investigation, public comment and other safeguards," says Jeffrey M. Schwab, the LJC's director of litigation. "The administration cannot skip those protections by reaching for a 1930 statute that no president had ever used to impose a tariff."
Why not? "Where provisions in two acts are in irreconcilable conflict, the later act, to the extent of the conflict, constitutes an implied repeal of the earlier one," the lawsuit says. "Where a later act covers the whole subject of an earlier one and is clearly intended as a substitute, it operates similarly as a repeal. And a specific policy embodied in a later federal statute controls the construction of an earlier one even absent express amendment."
Even if Section 338 somehow survived congressional approval of contrary laws, the LJC adds, Trump's tariffs exceed the authority it grants. And if Trump's interpretation of Section 338 were correct, the lawsuit says, the provision would violate the nondelegation doctrine, which bars Congress from delegating its tariff power to the president without providing "an intelligible principle" to guide and constrain his exercise of it.
Trump's Section 338 tariffs, in short, are "the Administration's latest attempt to exercise, through a statute never designed for the purpose, the tariff power that the Constitution assigns to Congress." That pattern should be familiar by now.
Shortly after taking office in 2025, Trump claimed to have discovered a previously unnoticed delegation of extensive tariff authority in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that does not mention import taxes and had never been used to impose them. That claim was rejected by every court that considered it, and last February the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs at all.
Trump responded to that decision by immediately announcing similarly broad tariffs under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which addresses "fundamental international payments problems" caused by "serious United States balance-of-payments deficits." In May, the CIT ruled that the new tariffs were illegal because Trump had failed to "identify balance-of-payments deficits within the meaning of Section 122."
Trump then switched to Plan C, invoking Section 301 of the Trade Act, which authorizes tariffs in response to a foreign "act, policy, or practice" that is "unreasonable or discriminatory" and "burdens or restricts" U.S. commerce. He claimed that provision justified tariffs on 86 trading partners, accounting for nearly all U.S. imports, because they had failed to "impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor." The CIT is currently weighing challenges to those tariffs, including an LJC lawsuit.
Trump's Section 338 tariffs have now added to the CIT's caseload. The LJC represents Gellert Global Group, an importer that was hit hard by those taxes after Trump added cheese to the list of disfavored Canadian goods. The lawsuit asks the CIT to certify a class of importers, numbering in "the hundreds, if not the thousands," that likewise have been clobbered by Trump's 50 percent tariffs.
Since Trump obviously is aware of Section 301, why did he resort to a never-used, seemingly obsolete provision to justify the tariffs on imports from Canada? As the LJC notes, Section 301 requires an investigation by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, "consultation with the foreign country concerned, notice, public comment, a hearing, and determinations within statutory deadlines." It also requires "that action be equivalent in value to the burden imposed, that duties be preferred over other import restrictions, and that actions terminate after four years absent a request for continuation and review."
Can Trump avoid those constraints by invoking Section 338 instead? The LJC thinks not: "Congress did not intend to leave in place a parallel authority that would allow the President to impose the same remedies, for the same conduct, free of every one of those safeguards."
Section 338 has been "impliedly repealed," the LJC argues. "At a minimum, Section 301 controls where, as here, the President seeks to respond to foreign practices within Section 301's scope, and the President may not impose duties in response to such practices while disregarding the procedures and limits Section 301 imposes. Because the President did not proceed under Section 301, the Section 338 Tariffs are unlawful whether or not Section 338 survives."
Even if you ignore subsequent legislation, the LJC argues, the Canadian policies that Trump cited when he announced the tariffs do not qualify as "discrimination" under Section 338. "Canada's motor vehicle surtax and its provinces' alcohol purchasing decisions are responses to tariffs that the United States imposed on Canada, not discrimination by Canada against the United States," it says. Trump also complained that Canada treats European cheese imports more favorably than U.S. cheese imports. But "when Congress enacted Section 338, a preference granted under a reciprocal agreement was not 'discrimination.'"
Section 338 "addresses discrimination: measures that single out United States commerce for worse treatment than the commerce of the world at large," the lawsuit says. "It is not a general authorization to impose tariffs whenever the President disagrees with a trading partner's policies, or whenever a trading partner responds to tariffs the United States has imposed on it."
Trump also was unfazed by Section 338's requirement that the president set duties to "offset" the costs imposed by discriminatory practices, which implies proportionality. Rather than attempt that, the LJC notes, Trump imposed "the statutory maximum rate of 50 percent without tying it to any measured burden."
As interpreted by Trump, the lawsuit warns, Section 338 authorizes the president to "impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on any products of any country that extends better treatment to any other country in any respect—including through any of the hundreds of preferential trade agreements to which the United States is not a party—or that responds to tariffs the United States has imposed on it." Yet Section 338 "contains no clear statement authorizing that power," contrary to the "major questions" doctrine, which applies to assertions of executive authority with "vast economic and political significance."
If Section 338 conferred the sort of unfettered authority that Trump is claiming, the LJC says, it "would supply no intelligible principle constraining the exercise of Congress's power to lay duties." His reading "would convert a narrow, fact-dependent provision into an effectively unrestricted delegation of Congress's tariff power," which would be "an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power."
This case "is not about the president," says LJC CEO Sara Albrecht. "It is about the presidency. No president should have the power to pull a dormant statute off the shelf and use it to impose sweeping tariffs or import bans without the limits Congress required."
The post Trump's 50% Tariffs on Canadian Goods Illegally Rely on a Superseded Statute, a Lawsuit Argues appeared first on Reason Magazine.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it would "make $8 billion available for one-time payments to American farmers this harvest season to provide relief during temporary market disruptions and increased input costs."
Using a formula derived from the USDA's production, yield, and price estimates, the Harvest Fuel Relief program will "provide simple, proportional support to producers." It will only cover a "portion of modeled losses during the 2026 crop year." The Farm Service Agency—an office within the USDA that administers credit and loan programs—will administer the $8 billion in one-time payments using funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation, a federal entity authorized to draw up to $30 billion from the U.S. Treasury to fund agricultural initiatives. Payment rates won't be released until November, and the USDA's notice leaves open the possibility of additional payments for "non-Title I commodities, including specialty crop growers and fishermen."
A fiscally questionable decision, the program comes at a time when farmers are feeling a significant price pinch. The dyed diesel American farmers and ranchers use is exempt from state and federal highway taxes, but that has done little to offset skyrocketing fuel prices. In September, the American Farm Bureau Federation projected that fuel expenses would reach $22 billion this year, up 29 percent from 2025. The Farm Bureau estimates that total production expenses will reach nearly $500 billion in 2026. According to its own predictions, the USDA doesn't expect the situation to improve anytime soon.
In its latest Commodity Costs and Returns report, released in June, the USDA projects farmers and ranchers will face record production costs in 2027—higher than during the COVID-19 supply chain disruptions—driven by higher prices for necessary inputs such as fuel, fertilizer, seeds, machinery, and labor.
While the USDA has blamed "temporary market disruptions" for these cost hikes, the blame more accurately falls to President Donald Trump, thanks to his illegal war in Iran. As of Tuesday, Trump's war—and the subsequent shocks it has caused to the global diesel supply—have pushed the national average price in the U.S. up $2.70 per gallon from a year ago, a 74.6 percent increase, according to AAA data.
Unfortunately, the war in Iran is just one of several Trump administration policies making life more expensive for everyone, including the nation's farmers and ranchers. Tariffs on imported fertilizer, which began in 2020 during the first Trump administration, have made it difficult for American farmers to afford what they need. By the Farm Bureau's estimates, fertilizer costs for 2026 are projected to reach a record $40 billion, up 15 percent from the previous year.
The $8 billion program is part of a windfall of taxpayer money the Trump administration has sent to farmers as relief for harms caused by the president's actions. Last December, the USDA sent $11 billion in one-time bridge payments to more than half a million farmers nationwide. Earlier this month, the USDA announced it would provide a record $13.8 billion in gross payments to agricultural producers to cover revenue losses.
In a speech in Kansas touting the program, Trump claimed that the state's residents would see a "plunge" in prices once the war ends. That's likely an exaggeration, given the host of questionable economic policies he seems hell-bent on implementing.
Still, that shouldn't discredit the president's suggestion. Ending the war would benefit farmers, ranchers, and consumers, without doling out billions in another government bailout for a favored industry.
The post Trump's $8 Billion Diesel Bailout Pays Farmers for a Problem He Created appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Today, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) filed Gellert Global Group Corp. v. Trump, the first lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's massive Section 338 tariffs against a variety of Canadian imports. The case was filed in the US Court of International Trade (which has jurisdiction over tariff-related cases); Gellert Global Group is an importer of Canadian cheese subject to the tariffs. LJC is the same public interest group that I worked with on the case challenging Trump's earlier IEEPA tariffs, which ultimate resulted in their invalidation by the Supreme Court. I am not directly involved in the present case. But I support it and believe it deserves to prevail.
LJC has also filed cases challenging Trump's massive Section 122 and Section 301 tariffs. They have become America's premier public interest law group standing up for free trade and enforcing constitutional constraints on executive power over trade restrictions.
Section 338 was part of the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff act of 1930, which gravely exacerbated the Great Depression. It has never been used before, likely because it was superseded by later laws.
I have previously written about why Trump's Section 338 tariffs are harmful and illegal. See my recent Montreal Economic Institute paper on this topic, and earlier pieces here, here, and here. To briefly summarize, the tariffs on Canada are illegal because 1) Section 338 has been superseded by later legislation, 2) even if Section 338 is still operative, Trump's tariffs do not meet its requirements because the Canadian actions they supposedly respond to do not "discriminate" against US goods, as the law requires, 3) Trump's tariffs do not "offset" the Canadian actions (as Section 338 also requires), but go far beyond that, 4) the administration's interpretation of Section 338 runs afoul of the "major questions" doctrine, and 5) if Section 338 is operative and does authorize the Trump actions, it would violate the constitutional nondelegation doctrine (which restricts delegation of legislative power to the executive).
The LJC complaint advances all five of these arguments. To prevail, they need win on only one. They also add a few more technical points that I will not try to cover here. LJC further seeks a class action certification for a class of all those importers subject to the Section 338 tariffs. If this succeeds, it would block all enforcement of Section 338 tariffs, not just those paid by Gellert.
This lawsuit does not directly challenge Trump's extension of the Section 338 action to categorically ban some Canadian imports, in addition to imposing tariffs. As far as I can tell, Gellert does not import goods subject to the ban (as opposed to the tariffs). However, as I explained here and here, the legality of the bans is dependent on that of the initial tariffs. In a recent Lawfare article, I outline the reasons why executive-imposed import bans are subject to most of the same legal constraints as executive-imposed tariffs.
Like the IEEPA, Section 122, and Section 301 tariffs, Trump's use of Section 338 is an attempt to convert a limited delegation of authority into a blank check enabling the president to impose tariffs whenever he wants. Courts should reject all of these power grabs.
I commend LJC for bringing this important case. And I hope and expect it may not be the last lawsuit challenging the Section 338 measures. Future cases might well challenge the import bans directly, as well as the tariffs.
The post Liberty Justice Center Files First Lawsuit Challenging Trump's Section 338 Tariffs Against Canadian Imports appeared first on Reason Magazine.
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