US trade chief Greer says wants US trade deficit on downward path

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Wednesday that his trade policy goal was to put the $1.2 trillion U.S. trade deficit on a downward path and to stem the loss of U.S. advanced manufacturing capacity.

Greer, in remarks to a reindustrialization summit in Detroit, said that President Donald Trump's expanded tariff program was already bearing fruit in terms of spurring new industrial investments in the U.S.

This includes $4 billion from General Motors to move some production to the U.S. from Mexico, new steel and pharmaceutical plants, Greer said, adding that Trump was encouraging countries to move production to the U.S. to avoid his tariffs.

Greer said in most substantial policy address since taking office in late February, that the U.S. industrial decline was due to long-running trade liberalization efforts by both Democratic and Republican administrations, including allowing China to join the World Trade Organization.

The 2024 U.S. trade deficit of $1.2 trillion was "a state of affairs that is as unsustainable as it is unacceptable," Greer said. "It almost sounds like Monopoly money."

To help remedy this, he said Trump's tariff policies called for a universal tariff rate of 10% on all countries, with higher rates for the most "problematic" ones, including China, which has the highest tariff rate of 55%.

"Of course, the president signaled a willingness to negotiate with countries if they want to have an alternative relation with us and really join us in re industrializing. And countries have been responsive," Greer said.

Trump himself drafted the recent letters that he has set to a number of countries informing them of tariff rates for their imports absent trade deals, Greer said.

"He had a line in there that says there will be no tariff if you decide to build or manufacture product within the United States," Greer said.

Greer also said that he also wanted to increase the manufacturing share of U.S. GDP and increase the median household income in the U.S. While tariffs were an important tool in this, there are others, including the recent enactment of a massive tax cut and spending bill that includes investments in energy, tax breaks for research and development and immediate expensing of capital investments against tax liabilities.

As the top U.S. trade lawyer, Greer said, "my job is to clear the playing field of all the pitfalls, the obstacles, all the unfairness that has hindered U.S. re-industrialization."