U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Wednesday that the White House was trying to find a way to resolve the controversy over its imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but hedged on whether that would involve actually lifting the tariffs.
It was important, he said, for the White House to maintain the “integrity” of the limits on imports.
“On Canada and Mexico, in the context of maintaining the integrity of the steel and aluminum program, we want very much to work out an agreement with Canada and Mexico,” Lighthizer said in an appearance before the House Ways and Means Committee. “We are in the process of doing that. Whether we’ll succeed or not, I don’t know.”
[Read more: Lighthizer flatters Pelosi with praise for her ‘early, forceful’ hawkish China stance]
Canada and Mexico were initially exempted from the administration’s tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum when the levies were first implemented last year, but the White House lifted them later in the year in order to pressure the countries during the negotiations over the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade. It was widely assumed the exemptions would be restored after the USMCA deal was reached, but the White House has thus far not done that, arguing instead that allowing exemptions undermines the intent of the tariffs.
Canada, Mexico, U.S. trade associations and congressional lawmakers have called for the exemptions to be restored. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the committee’s top Republican, has told the Washington Examiner there may not be sufficient support in Congress to pass USMCA if the exemptions aren’t restored.
