Republican Senator Will Introduce Bill to Limit Trump Trade Powers

January 19, 2017 Share Print 0

Donald Trump can get tough on America’s top trade partners on Day 1 of his presidency.

Trump has threatened tariffs on goods coming from Mexico or China, and he doesn’t need approval from Congress to do it.

On the eve of his presidency, his own party is trying to reel in those powers.

Republican Senator Mike Lee announced a new bill Thursday that would require Trump to go through Congress to use tariffs or to withdraw from free trade deals like NAFTA, the agreement between Canada, Mexico and the U.S.

Lee’s bill, which is slated to be introduced Friday, is one of the most concrete signs of GOP opposition to Trump’s trade agenda. Lee warns that Trump’s threats to use tariffs and tear up trade deals would hurt the U.S. economy.

Raising tariffs “would wreak havoc on many small and midsize manufacturers in my home state of Utah and across the country that rely on imports and globally connected supply chains,” Lee said.

Indeed, a new study from the Center for Automotive Research finds that withdrawal from NAFTA and a 35% tariff would be disastrous for the U.S. auto industry, leading car prices to spike and at least 31,000 U.S. auto manufacturing jobs to be lost.

Lee’s bill does not currently have any co-sponsors.

via CNN

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.