Source: Blog – Alliance for American Manufacturing

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AAM’s comments on the planned tariffs on the tariff and non-tariff barriers facing U.S. exports.

On April 2, the Trump administration is expected to announce a series of reciprocal tariffs to match tariff and non-tariff barriers that other countries impose on American exports.

President Trump is calling it “liberation day,” and the expected announcement will make lots of headlines. But, looked at dispassionately, this effort is not a surprise. The United States Trade Representative (USTR) each year publishes a phonebook-thick report on other countries’ foreign trade barriers. And we also know that unfair trade has greatly weakened U.S. industrial supply chains. In 2022 the Biden administration published a series of investigative reports into supply chain security, and in January 2025 USTR published a series of policy papers on supply chain resilience.

All of which is to say that concerns about reciprocal trade are well founded, and in comments submitted to USTR the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) commended the Trump administration for taking them seriously:

“Left unchecked, persistent trade cheating results in significant, negative community and personal impacts on people’s lives when a factory closes due to unfair trade. Moreover, tariff and non-tariff barriers of our trading partners distort markets and deny U.S. products a level playing field when competing against foreign goods.

“This affects U.S. companies and their workers competing both here in the United States and globally. The strength of the U.S. industrial base – including its upstream supply chains – is paramount for our economic and national security.”

In our comments, AAM points to many of the issues outlined in previous USTR foreign trade barriers reports across several industries, while naming others that merit careful consideration by the administration to determine what actions may be appropriate to rebalance lopsided trade deficits, enforce U.S. trade laws, and protect national security interests.

Here are those issues in brief:

First: Unfair Trade and Trade Deficits Really Do Harm U.S. Economic and National Security

The United States maintains one of the most open markets in the world compared to its major trading partners, has one of the lowest average weighted tariff rates, imposes far fewer barriers to imports, and has entered into many free trade agreements further opening its market to imported products.

Yet many of our trading partners impose high tariffs on many U.S. products and maintain non-tariff barriers that limit U.S. exports of industrial goods, agricultural products, and services and other commerce. Examples of non-tariff barriers include non-recognition of U.S. motor vehicle standards, a lack of uniformity among European Union Member States, and many other policies and practices that provide unfair competitive advantages.

These barriers, coupled with unfair practices that benefit foreign products imported into our own market, have contributed to massive and growing trade deficits across U.S. trading partners. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the goods and services deficit reached $918.4 billion in 2024, up $133.5 billion from 2023. This increase was primarily driven by a $187.1 billion increase in imported goods – a 14% goods deficit increase of $148.5 billion.

This is a problem that can’t be overlooked. Trade deficits are the clearest sign that imports have replaced domestic production throughout our supply chains at an alarming rate, leading to the loss of millions of good, middle-class jobs and devastating communities across our nation.

Second: Non-Reciprocal Procurement Markets Undermine Buy American Policies

U.S. government procurement – meaning all the goods and materials the government purchases – is a huge market that reaches into the hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and there are Buy American policies in place that give domestic manufacturers the first shot at fulfilling many procurement contracts. But procurement market access concessions made to our trading partners have proven to be anything but reciprocal when considering the monetary value of the market access. For example, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in a 2017 report that the extent of negotiated procurement market access for U.S. goods is a mere fraction of the access to U.S. procurement markets the United States has granted its trading partners.

Specifically, the GAO determined that the United States’ 2010 procurements subject to the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Procurement were more than double the monetary value of the GPA-covered procurements of the next five largest GPA countries combined. This imbalance comes at the expense of U.S. manufacturers and workers.

Third: China is the Leading Cause of Global Market Distortions and Overcapacity

While industrial overcapacity particularly in steelmaking is a global problem, the leading cause of the problem comes from China. As detailed in a June 2024 AAM report, overcapacity and overproduction are problems across China’s vast manufacturing sector, where dedicated state support combined with low rates of household consumption have created an environment where many industries produce far more than the Chinese market will absorb. The excess is exported, often at a loss, and manufacturers and workers in market economies around the world receive the sharp end of this largesse. It has too often been the United States’ open markets into which the excess is dumped.

“Addressing the role of market-distorting forces in creating and maintaining excess capacity must be a key component of the administration’s approach to identifying and addressing non-reciprocal trade concerns,” we write:

“China’s persistent non-market behavior has an enormously negative effect on markets worldwide, including significant harm to U.S. exporters, import-competing industries and their workers who are forced to compete against these subsidies. The breadth and depth of Beijing’s subsidies, intervention, and market distortions are directly responsible for the immense overcapacity in numerous industrial sectors – including, but not limited to, steel, aluminum, tires and auto parts, paper, solar, batteries, cement, glass, and shipbuilding.”

Fourth: Tariffs are Part of the Solution

“A carefully constructed tariff policy can alter trade imbalances, shift production out of adversarial countries, and, under the right circumstances, bring employment and production back to the United States,” we write. “Tariffs are also necessary to bring about meaningful negotiations that have proved to be elusive despite ample opportunities for China or other trade partners to make positive reforms. If China or other countries refuse to play by the rules and are unwilling to come to the negotiating table, there must be consequences – including losing some access to the U.S. market.”

But tariffs are only a part of the policy framework necessary to revitalize domestic production in critical industrial sectors.

AAM urges the administration to proceed with a comprehensive strategy that includes enforcement, addressing loopholes, eradicating forced labor, and continuing to make strategic investments in critical sectors. Further, it is necessary to provide funding for federal agencies on the front lines of these efforts, and assistance must be available to workers who are adversely impacted by unfair trade.

You can read AAM’s more detailed comments on USTR’s reciprocal trade proposals here.

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