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Jamieson Greer, the US Trade Representative, said he does not know if the administration’s 10% baseline tariffs will be replaced on a one-for-one basis.
The comment injects a new layer of uncertainty into an already murky trade policy landscape. Greer’s concern centers on a surprisingly basic legal question: does the Trade Act of 1974 actually allow the president to re-impose baseline tariffs after they expire in July 2026? The statute, written half a century ago, apparently never bothered to spell that out.
The administration isn’t sitting idle, though. The USTR has proposed alternative duties of 10% to 12.5%, tied specifically to forced labor investigations across dozens of trading partners, expected to begin taking shape around June 2026.
Greer has been clear about one thing: the goal is to avoid any return to zero-tariff baselines on imports.
The current tariff landscape
The US currently maintains Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods ranging from 7.5% to 100%. Section 232 tariffs, covering steel, aluminum, and other strategic materials, sit between 10% and 50%.
The 10% baseline tariff that Greer is now questioning sits below all of these, but it applies far more broadly. It’s the floor, not the ceiling. And if that floor disappears in July 2026 without a clear replacement mechanism, the administration would face the uncomfortable prospect of certain imports reverting to duty-free status, exactly what Greer says he wants to prevent.
Greer was confirmed as USTR on February 27, 2025, inheriting a trade apparatus that had already been significantly reshaped by years of escalating tariff actions. Legal challenges have chipped away at parts of the tariff architecture, making the succession planning even more urgent. The forced labor angle represents the administration’s attempt to ground new duties in a different legal authority.
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