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Last week, President Trump signed a memorandum laying out a plan for “fair and reciprocal” tariffs on U.S. trading partners. Here’s what you need to know. 
 
What’s going on: The memo, which follows proclamations earlier this month adjusting tariffs on U.S. imports of steel and aluminum, cites the need to “reduce our large and persistent annual trade deficit in goods and address other unfair and unbalanced aspects of our trade with foreign partners.” 

• The memo instructs the U.S. Trade Representative, the secretaries of commerce and homeland security, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and other officials and agencies to investigate all nonreciprocal relationships between the U.S. and other countries.   

What’s being reviewed: The “nonreciprocal” trade arrangements for examination include:

• Tariffs on U.S. exports;
• “[U]nfair, discriminatory or extraterritorial taxes … including a value-added tax”;
• Costs to the U.S. of “nontariff barriers or measures and unfair or harmful acts, policies or practices, including subsidies, and burdensome regulatory requirements on United States businesses operating in other countries”;
• Policies and practices that cause exchange-rate deviation from market value at the expense of Americans;
• Wage suppression; and
• Any other practice the administration deems an “unfair limitation on market access or any structural impediment to fair competition with the market economy of the United States.”

What’s next: By April 1, agencies and officials must complete the reports called for in the administration’s Jan. 20 “America First Trade Policy Memorandum.”  

• Agencies will submit to President Trump “proposed remedies in pursuit of reciprocal trade relations with each trading partner.”