WITA’s Friday Exchange: Trade Under Pressure: Tariff Narratives, China, and Global Whiplash
In the latest episode of the Friday Exchange, our trade insiders examine mounting pressures on the global trading system that is getting squeezed like a tube of toothpaste, as geopolitical tensions and supply chain disruptions reshape priorities. With conflict in the Gulf tightening energy supplies and economic stability taking precedence, countries across Asia and Europe are stepping back from new trade deals. The discussion explores stalled negotiations, uncertainty surrounding Section 301 actions, and growing skepticism among U.S. partners facing fertilizer shortages, inflation, and shifting policy demands. Our panel also dives into mixed signals in Southeast Asia, Vietnam’s unexpected position in the spotlight, and what path remains toward stability in this fragile moment for global trade
Watch the Video on YouTube | Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Recorded at 9:00 AM US/ET on 05/01/2026 | WITA
Ambassador Jamieson Greer’s Testimony Before the House Ways & Means Committee
On Wednesday, April 22nd, Ambassador Jamieson Greer gave his Testimony Before the House Ways & Means Committee on the Trump Administration’s 2026 Trade Policy Agenda.
Featured Speaker:
Ambassador Jamieson Greer, United States Trade Representative, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Watch or Read the Full Testimony Here
04/22/2026 | House Ways and Means Committee
Trump’s New Tariffs Expand the Boundaries of Section 232
Peter Harrell will be a featured guest at the joint WITA-Borderlex Academy in London on June 16-17. Information can be found here.
Earlier this month, President Trump announced significant changes to his tariffs on U.S. imports of steel, aluminum, and copper, some of which had been in place dating to his first term, and a new set of tariffs on imports of certain pharmaceutical products.
Trump is implementing these “product” tariffs under a different legal regime than the “IEEPA tariffs” Trump levied last year on imports from most U.S. trading partners, which the Supreme Court ruled unlawful in late February and which Trump is now trying to recreate under other statutes. The Trump administration is implementing the product tariffs pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which authorizes the president to take action to “adjust the imports” of an “article” if an investigation by the Department of Commerce finds that U.S. imports of the article “threaten to impair the national security.”
The courts have been deferential to the executive branch’s use of Section 232 since the Supreme Court upheld its use for tariffs in a 1976 case, Federal Energy Administration v. Algonquin SNG—and in recent years, the judicial branch’s deference to the executive in areas of national security has, if anything, increased. Indeed, while Trump’s original reciprocal tariffs last year drew multiple lawsuits that ended up at the Supreme Court, and the Court of International Trade recently heard oral arguments in two lawsuits against his fallback reciprocal tariffs, there have been comparatively few significant legal challenges to Trump’s Section 232 tariffs during his second term.
Nonetheless, Trump’s recent Section 232 tariff actions push the legal boundaries of the statute and should face greater legal and congressional scrutiny.
04/27/2026 | Peter E. Harrell | Lawfare
When Trump Met Escalation Dominance
Richard Baldwin is a Professor of International Economics at The International Institute for Management Development (IMD).
The following is an excerpt:
The US-China trade war of 2025 offers lessons for Trump’s 2026 shooting war in Iran.
The USA can escalate in the Gulf. Trump has repeatedly threatened to do so. But each time he climbed down. These flip flops, in the real war in Iran and the trade war with China, had little to do with foreign actions. They were driven by cost-of-living considerations in America. As with his Chinese tariffs, the weapon and tactics he is using in Iran are hurting his political base.
China established escalation dominance by showing it could absorb the export pain caused by US tariffs longer than President Trump could absorb the pain his own tariffs caused his political base.
Shortages, price spikes, and factory disruptions forced a rethink….
Iran presents a different battlefield, but a similar logic. Like China, it controls a choke point that can impose pain on American consumers and producers, the Strait of Hormuz.
If that pressure feeds through to US prices and jobs, the political arithmetic looks much the same. The incentive to TACO is the same.
The difference is that this time, the optics are harder to manage. In 2025, Beijing was content to allow Donald Trump his happy headlines. When Trump did a climbdown and call it a chest pump, China stayed silent.
Iran and American military and foreign affairs experts do not seem willing to play along with a make-believe victory. Since happy headlines are the heart-and-soul of a Trumpian TACO, I fear we may see more pretend-and-extend rather than a clear TACO. But who knows?
When Trump met his match in China, he declared victory and moved on. If the same dynamics play out with Iran, the ending may look familiar. Find a fig leaf. Declare victory. Pass the problem on to someone else. Move on to the next norm-shattering actions. Cuba? Greenland? Some other island?
04/24/2026 | Richard Baldwin | Substack
China is Knocking at the Trans-Pacific Trade Door—Canada Must Not Swing it Wide Open
A Canadian parliamentary delegation returned last month from Beijing bearing glad tidings: China wants in on the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Senator Clement Gignac, co-chair of the Canada-China Legislative Association, reported that his Chinese counterparts were eager for Ottawa’s support in Beijing’s long-stalled bid to join the CPTPP. He even suggested that Canada had helped China join the World Trade Organization once before, so why not again?
With respect to Senator Gignac, this framing fundamentally misunderstands what the CPTPP is, what it was designed to do, and why China’s admission would undermine the very architecture that makes it valuable.
I know this because I was there when it was built.
As Canada’s Minister of International Trade from 2011 to 2015, I was integrally involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations—the agreement that would later become the CPTPP after the United States withdrew in 2017. I sat at the table with trade ministers from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei. I know what we were trying to accomplish. And I know what we were trying to guard against.
The TPP was never merely a tariff-reduction exercise. It was a strategic initiative—one conceived in large part as a counterweight to China’s growing economic dominance in the Asia-Pacific region and its serial violation of the rules-based international trading order. Let us be honest about that, even if diplomatic convention sometimes discourages saying it plainly.
04/28/2026 | Hon. Ed Fast | Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI)
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