iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bottom line: Will the Trump admin remove USMCA digital trade rules that internationally preempt laws made since USMCA went into effect or let Big Tech hijack Trump’s NAFTA redo to undermine 8 US state right to repair laws, Tex & Montana child online safety/privacy laws, etc 9/9

021

Another former USTR staffer, Jonathan McHale, who wrote USMCA’s “digital trade” rules Big Tech loves & now lobbies for the Computer & Communications Industry Assoc, couldn’t resist asking for more! New rules to limit AI oversight, back to uninspected de minimis imports etc. 8

220

The witness from a group called The Internet Society (members include Amazon, Google, China Telecom) began saying they dont have a business stake & dont engage on trade & then literally mouthed Big Tech’s talking points defending the 5 USMCA terms limiting Big Tech regulation 7/

100

The Consumer Technology Assoc. digital trade lobbyist, another revolving door former US Trade Representative staffer, had the vibe too: This is a review, NOT a renegotiation of USMCA. Do no harm (to USMCA’s extreme limits on common govt policies regulating Big Tech). Then… 6/

https://rethinktrade.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/USTR_Rethink-Trade_USMCA.pdf

Wish I had not respected the 5-min limit when I spoke — see below for our comments. One of the many former US government trade officials now repping Big Tech at this USMCA 6-year review hearing just went on (unblissfully) for almost ten mins…5/ t.co/zN0ZuG4AKZ

t.co

100

The Business Software Alliance witness didn’t discussing USMCA & instead “countered” dangerous “myths” about digital trade, which turned out to be a rhetorical poke at critiques documented in the body of analytical & research literature found at our rethinktrade.xn--org-l353b 4/

100

REPORT: International Preemption by “Trade” Agreement: Big Tech’s Ploy

“Us” is small biz, consumers, our privacy, our kids, our right to repair our stuff… The rules Big Tech got into USMCA use a form of international preemption. Ie “trade” agt rules simply forbid common policies governments use to counter Big Tech abuses 3/ rethinktrade.org/reports/inte...

rethinktrade.org

This policy brief uses excerpts from 117th Congress bills and from administration policy documents to show the direct conflicts between prominent U.S. ...

100

The defensive “do no harm” call for no changes to USMCA shows Big Tech realizes many in Congress, unions, consumer/digital rights groups are on to their ploy of using closed door trade talks & wonky trade rules to forbid Congress & state legislatures from protecting us-meaning 2/

100

10 Big Tech lobbyists here to defend special privileges & powers they got Trump to add to his 2020 US-Mexico-Canada Agt or USMCA - the Trump NAFTA update. Versus 2 witnesses against Big Tech’s “digital trade” attack at hearing on the 6-year USMCA review. Quite revealing… 1/

Lori Wallach @wallachlori.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Commerce Sec. Lutnick said the Trump admin will trade away American manufacturing (steel tariffs) if Europe will gut law against Big Tech monopoly abuse. For a quick overview of EU digital regs Trump wants killed & the implications, check out my latest Rethinking Trade podcast.

041

Because of the govt shutdown, we don’t have the latest Fed data on manufacturing construction investment. But in the first half of 2025, it was trending down monthly same as the manufacturing indexes described in this story. Opposite of what Trump promised working class voters.

030

Lori Wallach @wallachlori.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Explicitly trading away U.S. manufacturing (steel and aluminum tariffs) for Big-Tech-demanded rollbacks of European anti-monopoly and other digital safeguards is pretty much the opposite of what Trump promised working class voters in PA, WI, MI, etc. 😡

080

Lori Wallach @wallachlori.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Thank you @rokhanna.bsky.social for raising awareness about Trump’s lopsided America Last China “trade deal.” Yes to a Manhattan Project on rare earths. The minerals are not so rare as far as where they are located, but they require intense processing. We must improve/stand up that capacity.

061

Absent action against price gouging, corp. concentration I bet we won’t get cheaper bananas, coffee, etc. ie. 3 corps have 80% of US banana sales, etc. Firms can use tariffs as cover to up prices even if exporters cover tariff costs or goods arent tariffed and never cut... 5/5

040

It seems POTUS is feeling pressure from the Democrats' "affordability" election sweep. So why not target the real cause of high beef prices -- 4 huge meatpackers controlling 85% of the US beef market! (Read @basel.bsky.social's great 9/24 report w/ FarmActionUS to learn more.) 4/

140

Obviously announcing tariffs cuts on items w/o tariffs won't cut prices But tariff cuts on goods that do also won't likely cut prices @RethinkTrade tracked the consumer price index vs China tariff rate & corporate profits. Prices📈tracked corp profit trends not tariff levels 3/

130

So, there should never have been tariffs on “tropical products” like coffee, cocoa, pineapple, mangoes etc. that we don’t produce here. The elimination of these tariffs now seems to be the unfortunate Trump “READY, FIRE, AIM!” general tariff chaos. But🤔on beef and tomatoes! 2/

Lori Wallach @wallachlori.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Please share your theory: Why did Trump announce beef 🥩and tomato🍅tariff cuts when 99% of US🍅imports and 42% of🥩are from Mexico or Canada and ALREADY DUTY FREE under USMCA? Argentine beef is another 25% import share and ALREADY HAD TARIFFS CUT. So why cut PHANTOM TARIFFS? 1/

271

Larry Summers — not just wrong and immoral on economics and trade…

030

Lori Wallach @wallachlori.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

And POTUS again shreds his lawyer's key claim in SupCrt tariff case: Trump SolGen Sauer 11/5 - "These are regulatory tariffs. They are not revenue-raising tariffs.... The tariffs would be most effective, so to speak, if no -- no -- no person ever paid them." Trump 11/9👇

020

Lori Wallach @wallachlori.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the cases challenging Pres Trump's broad tariff authority. Catch up w/ highlights from the 2+ hour session & hints of where the SCrt may be headed in my thread👇This is a very consequential case. Tariff rates are the least of it!

020

Reposted by Lori Wallach

Tanya Tussing @tanyatussing.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Good thread about supreme court arguments RE: Trump tariff power over reach case.

122

3) how difficult it is practically for Congress to use the vote IEEPA provides to end emergency declaration given a prez can veto so supermajority needed. The same conservative justice seemed to be sorting that v. what to make of what Congress meant w/ specific IEEPA terms.

020

...tariff authority because many of the conservative justices seemed concerned re. 1) lack of any bounds to administration's notion of the authority IEEPA grants a prez 2) where that broad delegation could lead re declarations of dif types of emergencies by dif presidents...

And, with that, the oral arguments WRAP. Now festivities shift to front steps of the court, where litigants will do press. My biggest takeaway: Tho oral arguments arent ispositive of where court will go, bet Trump staff will be dusting off other statutes that give a prez...

261

I do not envy SolGen having to make the latter argument with Pres. Trump constantly bragging about how much money the tariffs are bringing in AND the fact that the US trade deficit has increased during the period the tariffs have been in effect.

The SolGen then gets a rebuttal: He returns to notion of inherent Art. II prez powers and that these tariffs are NOT about revenue raising but aimed at countering crisis of too many imports/huge trade deficit and would be most successful if not $$ came in because fewer imports...

130

And Justice Sotomayor then notes two examples: Pres. Trump decided to impose a 10% tariff on Canada because he did not like a TV ad. He imposes high tariffs on Brazil because he does not like their legal system holding a former president accountible for criminal activity.

130

Sotomayor: Isn't the point that if it is about taxing Americans, then both chambers of Congress have to approve it? (Back to her starting argument that tariff is same as tax....) Do we allow a prez to use the taxing power to decide what he unilaterally thinks is good policy?

Gorsuch: White House says its high tariffs on India are to pressure that country in context of trying to end Russian hostities against Ukraine - a core foreign policy goal and serious emergency. Sotomayor cuts in to help OR AG: Isnt the issue WHO decides not what tools is best?

Gorsuch probing about common sense meaning of IEEPA... How could it be that a Prez in oval office could say, we have an emergency w/ X country and I have to cut off all trade, cannot do something more calibrated? Why would Congress intend to limit a president's toolkit?

Gorsuch - but why would Congress intend to create that donut hole - you can cut off all trade but not impose a 1% tariff? OR AG: A tariff is a totally different type of pastry! Gorsuch: Good one (court room laughs) OR AG: Tariffs are suspect b' they can be about revenue raising

OR AG: Tariffs are different - they are revenue measures. And only Congress has that authority. Gorsuch jumps in: So in IEEPA Congress authorizes a prez to cut off all trade from all countries but not impose a 1% tariff? OR AG: yes different things. One is trade & one is revenue

Now Oregon's AG Benjamin Gutman is up. Justice Coney-B: So, if IEEPA allows quotas and embargoes, and authorizes a Prez to "regulate importation" how is it that it would not authorize tariffs? Quotas and embargoes are a more powerful way to regulate trade than tariffs?

111

Coney-Barrett: If you win, how would reimbursement of tariffs work? Katyal: direct plaintiffs would get their tariffs refunded. For others, there's process in trade law see eg. 19 USC 1514. Maybe it could just be going forward. Conney-B: So a mess... Katyal: it wld be complicated

140

...other parts of that statute (Section 232) refer to "duties" (ie tariffs) and that case was about one product not the millions administration claims IEEPA allows them to tariff

Justice Kavanaugh picks up this line: Sup Crt 9-0 on Algonquin said Pres. Ford could use tariffs under Section 232 despite that statute also not using the word "tariff" bur rather "adjust imports" Katyal: we're not saying there must be a "magic word" but rather in Algonquin

like embargo, seize, ban etc. Katyal in sum -- we can win on plain language of statute w/o Major Questions Doctrine. Statute does not use the word tariffs and other delegations delegating tariff authorities do.

Gorsuch: Can you make ur case w/o relying on Major Question doctrine given plain language of IEEPA gives authority to use "license" and that is economically identical to a tariff plus "regulate importation" plus open-ended language "or otherwise" beyond 9 specific verbs IEEPA oks

Katyal in response to Kagan question: Why would any prez use any of the various US Code Section 19 statutory tariffs authorities to do anything on tariffs if they could just IEEPA it, French Revolution it

Sotomayor: In both cases of presidents useing War Power to impose tariffs (Lincoln on cotton, Nixon), Congress felt it necessary to formally approve that action. Kaytal: Yes, even at height of prez power (war) the tariff authority is w/ Cong

140

Alito to Katyal: Did you think that your fame could be to revive the non-delegation doctrine?! (Because this doctrine was used by conservatives to fight FDR new Deal policies and isn't usually raised by Dems...) Court giggles. Katyal basically: Threats of this broad delegation...

100

if the court allows IEEPA to authorize tariff authority to do that, it would require a supermajority in Congress to take back that power. Thomas hypothetical: Is yr perspective that a president cld only use trade embargo during n energency re. China hostilities not tariffs

100

Justice Alito hypothetical: what if using a tariff could stop a war? Could a president use tariffs? Katyal: A prez should go to Cong and ask for authrity to use tariffs that way. Citing 2 conservative justices having raised this concern he notes -

Katyal on why IEEPA okaying embargoes and “regulate importation” clause doesn’t authorize tariffs Tariffs are constitutionally special because our founders feared revenue raising, unlike embargoes. There was no “Boston Embargo Party,” but there was certainly a Boston Tea Party.

Answer: Yoshida II ruling said 1) only pk because there were limits (tariffs were 10% across board and for 5 months) 2) tariff levels were below levels Congress had okayed before 3) Section 122 allowing tariffs for trade imbalance was enacted since and she be used instead