President Donald Trump will sign two executive orders on Friday, March 31, aimed at fighting trade abuse.
The first calls for a report every imbalance contributing to the current U.S. trade deficit.
Officials will have 90 days to produce a comprehensive report, country by country and product by product, of how U.S. goods are affected by current trade agreements.
This report will be the basis for future trade deals.
Trump told reporters, “We’ve created the task force in every agency to eliminate wasteful regulations. And we are signing two very powerful executive orders. It will be something very important, very, very special. And that will be with commerce.”
The second order combats dumping—foreign countries selling good at artificially low prices in the U.S. Dumping forces U.S. goods out of the market. At first the countries dumping goods lose money; once they capture the markets they can recoup their losses.
President Trump will be meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago next week.
During the campaign Trump promised to get tough on trade with China, and to call out China for currency manipulation.
While not aimed specifically at China, these two orders could be an opening bid in Trump’s trade negotiations with Xi.
