Trump targets trade abuses with two executive orders

Staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders Friday focused on reducing the trade deficit just days before he conducts his first meeting with his Chinese counterpart.

Trump’s aides insist the timing is coincidental, but the administration is touting the moves as evidence of it taking an aggressive but analytical approach to closing a trade gap that is largely due to the influx of goods from China. Some experts say the orders suggest the president may be taking a softer tack on trade.

The first order gives the Commerce Department 90 days to assemble a report on the factors behind the trade deficit, while the second seeks to increase collection of duties on imports.

In remarks in the Oval Office, Trump said he’d seen first-hand as he travelled the country how bad trade deals had hurt American workers.

“The jobs and wealth have been stripped from our country,” he said, vowing to put that to an end. “We’re bringing manufacturing and jobs back to our country.”

The president had been expected to sign the orders after giving his remarks, but left before he had. A White House official said he signed the orders later.

Several economists said it’s unlikely the planned report would address the broader economic forces behind the trade imbalance, since it would track trade deficits country-by-country and product-by-product.

And the order on trade duties appears to duplicate the standards of a trade enforcement act signed into law by then-President Obama in 2016, according to congressional staff.

Coupled together, the orders appear to be a symbolic shot at China, which accounted for the vast majority – $347 billion – of last year’s $502 billion trade deficit.

“Unfair trade practices have hurt communities in Northeast Ohio and across the US for decades. President Trump spoke at length about these inequities during the campaign, promising immediate action to level the playing field if elected. But now that he sits in the Oval Office he’s opted for theatric signings of executive orders that do very little, instead of the doing the bold action he promised like declaring China a currency manipulator on day one or looking at ways to fix NAFTA. The Administration’s actions should represent a genuine desire to establish a new rulebook for trade, and not just a halfhearted attempt to change the subject while maintaining the status quo,” said Congressman Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13.

Trump referenced his meeting with China in his remarks in the Oval Office.