The Trump administration is pushing back its timetable for completing a controversial investigation into whether to impose tariffs on auto imports, as officials try to negotiate agreements with some of the world’s largest car exporters.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters in late July that he would complete his study and recommendations on the possible national security threat from automotive imports “probably sometime in the month of August.”
But in an interview Monday with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Ross said it is now “not clear the report will be out at the end of the month.” He said the delay was “in view of the negotiations” ongoing with the European Commission, Mexico, and Canada.
Mr. Ross also suggested that it was taking longer than anticipated to sift through the reams of material submitted by auto makers in the U.S. and around the world opposed to the prospect of new tariffs pushing up the costs to consumers and disrupting global supply chains.
“We just received elaborate questionnaires from the car companies, with zillions of pages, and that won’t be ready in five minutes,” he said. “We’re running out of August.”
Mr. Ross declined to set a new timetable, noting that the law used to justify the report doesn’t require any findings until next year.
President Trump announced on May 23 that he was directing the Commerce Department to launch an investigation into whether auto imports could be deemed a threat to national security warranting across-the-board tariffs. The study was similar to one opened a year earlier into steel and aluminum that ultimately led to broad taxes on those imports earlier this year.
Officials had originally suggested the process for vehicle tariffs was on a fast track. In late July, Mr. Ross told reporters that “probably sometime in the month of August we’ll be willing to render a report” that would include the Commerce Department’s findings on the impact of imports on the domestic auto industry, as well as recommendations for possible policies to curb those imports.
On Monday Mr. Ross indicated that a renewed optimism the Trump administration could negotiate better trade deals with some of its biggest automotive trading partners had reduced the urgency of the project.
Mr. Ross said that one factor slowing the timetable for the report was the late-July promise President Trump made to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that he would hold off imposing any new tariffs on European auto maker after the two leaders launched a broader negotiation over cutting industrial tariffs and subsidies. Officials from the two sides held their first follow-up session in Washington Monday to begin to flesh out the framework for those talks.
“I believe he made the same tacit commitment” to Mexico and Canada, Mr. Ross said, referring to negotiations between the U.S. and its two neighbors to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement. U.S. and Mexican negotiators are meeting this week in hopes of reaching some kind of agreement by the end of the month.
Mr. Ross said the notion that the automotive report would be released in August “came before we were making progress with Nafta” and with Europe.
Asked when the report would be completed, Mr. Ross declined to give a new date, adding that the 1962 national security tariff law being used to justify the probe “gives us 270 days from when we started, which gets us into next year.” The legal deadline for a report is mid-February.
In contrast with the steel tariffs, which drew support from the domestic industry, Mr. Trump’s threat to impose across-the-board auto tariffs has drawn widespread opposition, including from the auto industry.
On Monday, a coalition of auto makers, parts suppliers, and other firms in the industry announced plans to fight any new auto tariffs, saying such policies would boost costs and “result in less capital for investments in innovation and less competition in promoting cutting-edge automotive technologies developed here at home,”
Many lawmakers in Mr. Trump’s Republican Party have also opposed the prospect, some introducing legislation aimed at curbing his ability to block imports in the name of national security.
