00:00Jeff Moon is a former assistant U.S. trade representative for China.
00:04Jeff, thanks so much for your time.
00:07Do you really believe these tariffs have anything at all to do with this attempt to remove forced labor from
00:16global supply chains?
00:19U.S. law forbids the import of products produced by forced labor,
00:23and the U.S. has aggressively pursued fact-based allegations of forced labor, including with respect to China.
00:28But these Section 301 forced labor tariffs were rolled out hastily and without differentiating factually
00:36between countries that do and do not take forced labor seriously.
00:40Meanwhile, the Trump administration has stated clearly through many people
00:44that these new tariffs are simply intended to replace the IEPA tariffs that were invalidated in February.
00:50So it's not hard to conclude that not only are these Section 301 tariffs not really about forced labor,
00:58but imposing forced labor tariffs under these circumstances undercuts the legitimate good work being done around the world
01:05to crack down on forced labor abuses.
01:08Do you think, you know, it clearly looks like an attempt to just continue with tariffs,
01:14no matter what the reason is behind it?
01:16Because of that, the motivation issue, do you think that it could be open to challenge?
01:22Oh, certainly.
01:23These tariffs are definitely going to be challenged in U.S. courts.
01:26I think there will be two strategies.
01:28Litigants will claim that USTR's investigation did not meet the requirements of the Section 301 statute.
01:34To give you just one example, the statute requires a showing that the practices being challenged burden the U.S.
01:42economy.
01:42But it's not clear that USTR has proven that's the case here.
01:45In addition, as your correspondent said, there will be claims that the U.S. Constitution prevents the executive branch
01:53from essentially taking over the tariff power that belongs to the U.S. Congress under the Constitution.
01:58After all, we're talking about tariffs on 99 percent of all imports into the U.S.
02:03So this claim, under what's called the non-delegation doctrine, was one of the grounds at issue in the IEPA
02:10litigation.
02:10And we can definitely expect to hear that argument again.
02:13And the problem is that it will take us a year or so to find out if the challenges to
02:18the statute and these tariffs are successful.
02:20Yeah, I mean, the time factor is an absolutely crucial one.
02:23In the meantime, do you expect to see a decrease in exports to the United States and difficult relations with
02:30key trading partners?
02:33Certainly that would be the case.
02:35I think that the main damage of these tariffs – well, these tariffs are really preserving the status quo under
02:40IEPA.
02:41But the main damage is really to the trust and the relationships that the U.S. has with foreign governments
02:49and foreign trading partners and foreign friends.
02:51That's the real problem here.
02:53So I think that there is significant damage that will persist as a result of all this.
02:59All right.
02:59Thank you so much for speaking to us.
03:01Jeff Moon is a former assistant U.S. trade representative for China.
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