Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, plans to introduce legislation to check the executive branch’s authorities to impose tariffs pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 in the next few weeks, a spokesperson for the senator said in an email Monday evening.
The bill will focus on reforming the statute and ensuring that any actions pursuant to that law are based on a “real national security determination” and that Congress has a larger role to play in Section 232 actions regarding U.S. allies, the spokesperson said.
During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee trade hearing on Thursday, Portman said Section 232 should be changed to reflect that the Defense Department is the entity most capable of determining U.S. national security interests and that national security should be defined according to definitions of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“I think there are things we could do to ensure that going forward we don’t misuse 232 because my concern is that we will lose the tool,” Portman said. “We will lose it because one of two things will happen.”
He said countries could either retaliate without showing unfair trade, as is currently happening, or the United States could go back to the World Trade Organization and, because use of the 232 tariffs is so broad, lose a case that challenges the U.S. use of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Article XXI, which provides a security exception for countries to take certain trade actions.
Portman also mentioned current statutory language allowing Congress to prevent executive actions to adjust imports of petroleum products through passing a disapproval resolution and said he believes Section 232 disapproval could be put into play for all products.