White House play for broad tariff authority leaked

Drafted legislation would give president authority to abandon World Trade Organization rules.    The Trump administration has drafted legislative language that would give the president sweeping powers to raise tariffs on goods from countries deemed to impose significantly higher duties and/or nontariff barriers on the same goods exported from the United States, according to an Axios report published Sunday.
   But White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters cautioned that the Trump administration isn’t preparing to roll out the drafted legislation, adding that “principals have not even met to review any text of legislation on reciprocal trade.”
   If enacted, the United States Fair and Reciprocal Trade Act would provide for abandoning fundamental World Trade Organization rules, including the most favored nation principle that countries can’t set different tariffs for different countries as well as the “bound tariff rates” principle setting tariff ceilings agreed to by each country in WTO negotiations, Axios reported.
   A source who spoke to Axios said there was little chance of the proposal passing Congress.
   “It is no secret that POTUS has had frustrations with the unfair imbalance of tariffs that put the U.S. at a disadvantage,” Walters told Axios. “He has asked his team to develop ideas to remedy this situation and create incentives for countries to lower their tariffs. The current system gives the U.S. no leverage and other countries no incentive.”
   The proposal would leave it up to the president to decide whether to terminate any increase in tariffs by the United States, if/when the president determines the foreign country is no longer applying duties “significantly higher” than the original U.S. tariffs or if the president determines the U.S. duties are no longer in the “economic or public interest,” according to the text of the proposal obtained by Axios.
   The proposal would require the executive branch to consult with the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees and with executive branch trade advisory committees, but these exterior institutions wouldn’t be required to formally sign off on any additional tariff amounts the president might decide to impose.