Grassley Says Section 232 Compromise May Not Be Reached By October
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, raised the possibility that he would not be able to broker a compromise between the two approaches on restraining the president's ability to levy tariffs under Section 232. While he said his goal is to have a committee meeting in late September or early October that would take up a "Grassley-Wyden" version, he said if that can't happen, he will bring forward competing bills and allow lots of amendments to shape them.
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Grassley, who was speaking from Iowa on Aug. 7, touched on trade topics ranging from Brazil and the new NAFTA to China. He told reporters that President Donald Trump's comments about engaging in free trade agreement negotiations with Brazil is evidence of his philosophy that he wants to lower tariffs around the world.
He disagreed with reporters' assertion that it looks like China and the U.S. are in a cycle of retaliation that could be hard to exit for months or years. Trump set the 10 percent tariffs on List 4 "to take place September 1 instead of immediately to signal to them that we want to continue those talks," he said. While Grassley said he hopes the U.S. can get back on track with China, he also said later in the call that China lies, because officials said they'd resume agricultural purchases, and then didn't.
"If you aren't negotiating in good faith, it's pretty difficult for me to predict when we're going to have an agreement," he said.
While the China negotiations have not been fruitful, the administration did achieve a rewrite of NAFTA. Grassley said he wonders why Democratic candidates campaigning in Iowa aren't getting questions from farmers and United Autoworkers members about whether they will vote for the new NAFTA. He said he'd expect UAW members to challenge the candidates "because it's so good for domestic content manufacturing of equipment UAW workers put together."