S.Amdt. 2578

As folks working for you here in Congress, it is our job to keep an eye on what our elected officials are trying to do and make sure they are held accountable. Mr. Schatz submitted amendment SA 2578, which targets duties put in place under the national emergency declared in Executive Order 14257. That executive order relates to regulating imports with a reciprocal tariff to fix trade practices causing large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficits.

What It Aims to Change

The purpose of this amendment is to add an exemption to the bill. Specifically, it aims to change things so that these duties will not apply to certain consumer goods if those duties are estimated to push the final sale price up higher than a normal 2 percent annual inflation rate would.

To make sure everyone is on the same page, the text explicitly defines what counts as a consumer good for this exemption:

• An item included in the consumer goods principle end-use commodity category from the Bureau of the Census.

• An intermediate input included in the capital goods or industrial supplies category, as long as that input is used to make a good right here in the United States that will be sold to U.S. consumers.