Modifying the Scope of Products of Canada Subject to the Additional Duties Imposed To Offset Canadian Discrimination Against the Commerce of the United States With Respect to Motor Vehicles

A new proclamation revises the scope of duties on Canadian motor vehicle products, amending the tariff fight begun in July over Canada's alleged auto tariff discrimination. The document recounts its own recent history in granular detail: a three-day suspension in August, a collapse in negotiations, and the duties snapping back into effect at 12:01 a.m. on August 22 after Canada, in the proclamation's telling, reneged.

The stated justification for tweaking the tariffs now is that unnamed senior executive branch officials told the President the existing duties were already offsetting the burden on U.S. commerce just fine, but modifying them would offset it even better. The President agrees with the President's own officials, and finds, once again, that the public interest requires exactly what he was already planning to do.

Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 is invoked as the legal engine, a Depression-era provision empowering duties up to 50 percent ad valorem whenever a foreign country is judged to discriminate against U.S. commerce. The proclamation does not specify which products move in or out of scope in the body provided, only that senior officials recommended it and the President concurred.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.