26. Trade · Major · Needs Congress · Contested — excluded from counts

Enact the United States Reciprocal Trade Act (USRTA)

Not started

Printed page 770 26. Trade · from “The Case for Fair Trade”

“To address this nonreciprocity stalemate, President Trump urged Congress in his 2019 State of the Union address to pass the United States Reciprocal Trade Act (USRTA). Under the USRTA, the President would have the authority to bring any American trading partner that is currently applying higher nonreciprocal tariffs to the negotiating table. If that trading partner refused to lower tariffs to U.S. levels, the President then would have the authority to raise U.S. tariffs to match or “mirror” the foreign partner’s tariffs.”

What has happened

Feb 20, 2026 Not started
The Supreme Court held in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs, and Executive Order 14389 ended the reciprocal duties the same day. Nothing of the executive substitute survives and the statute the Quote asks for has never been enacted: H.R. 735 is still in committee, and none of the 119th Congress's public laws grants mirror-tariff authority.
- Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287 — held: IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs
  Primary Courts Feb 20, 2026
- Executive Order 14389 — Ending Certain Tariff Actions
  Primary Executive branch Feb 20, 2026
Apr 2, 2025 Attempted
The administration took the USRTA's route without the USRTA. The Presidential Memorandum of 2025-02-13 announced a "Fair and Reciprocal Plan" directing agencies to determine "the equivalent of a reciprocal tariff with respect to each foreign trading partner", and Executive Order 14257 then imposed reciprocal duties on imports from all trading partners under IEEPA, with a clause promising to lower them for partners that "take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements". This is an executive workaround for a Requires-Congress ask, not enactment: H.R. 735, the United States Reciprocal Trade Act, was introduced on 2025-01-24 and has not moved out of committee.
- Presidential Memorandum: Reciprocal Trade and Tariffs (the "Fair and Reciprocal Plan")
  Primary Executive branch Feb 13, 2025
- Executive Order 14257 — Regulating Imports With a Reciprocal Tariff To Rectify Trade Practices That Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits
  Primary Executive branch Apr 2, 2025

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Contested Recommendation from “The Case for Fair Trade”.
Legislative record, Primary sources loaded this session:
- H.R. 735, United States Reciprocal Trade Act, introduced 2025-01-24; latest action is the referral to Ways and Means and Rules — https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr735/html/BILLS-119hr735.htm
- Nothing in the 104 public laws of the 119th Congress enacts a reciprocal-tariff statute (checked the whole public-laws Corpus by title).
Executive route taken instead, Primary sources loaded this session:
- Presidential Memorandum, “Reciprocal Trade and Tariffs”, 2025-02-13; §2 announces the “Fair and Reciprocal Plan” — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/19/2025-02872/reciprocal-trade-and-tariffs (operative text read at govinfo, FR-2025-02-19/2025-02872). The memorandum is addressed to Cabinet officers; it contains no request that Congress pass the USRTA.
- Presidential Memorandum, “America First Trade Policy”, 2025-01-20 — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/30/2025-02032/america-first-trade-policy
- Executive Order 14257, 2025-04-02 — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/04/07/2025-06063/regulating-imports-with-a-reciprocal-tariff-to-rectify-trade-practices-that-contribute-to-large-and
- Executive Order 14389, “Ending Certain Tariff Actions”, 2026-02-20 — https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/02/25/2026-03832/ending-certain-tariff-actions
- Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287 (2026-02-20), slip op. at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1287_4gcj.pdf
The executive route is recorded as an attempted event per the playbook’s rule for Requires-Congress asks (executive workarounds are attempted, not partial), and the Status returns to not started when the workaround is struck down and revoked, because the statute the Quote names was never enacted and nothing stands in its place.
Checked 2026-09-10: “nothing stands in its place” still holds for this ask (resolving the question the 2026-09-09 scan triage left open). A second executive tariff route did open after Learning Resources, on an authority that decision does not reach — but it is not a route to the USRTA’s object. Read at govinfo and whitehouse.gov:
- Proclamations 11046, 11047 and 11048 of 2026-07-20 — alcoholic beverages (91 FR 46639), dairy (91 FR 46653), motor vehicles (91 FR 46663) — impose an additional 50 percent ad valorem duty on listed Canadian products “by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 338; section 301 of title 3, United States Code; and section 604”. Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 is cited throughout; IEEPA not once.
- Proclamation 11056 of 2026-08-18 (91 FR 54789) suspended all three for three days after Canada “expressed a commitment to remove the discrimination”. Per the September proclamations, Canada “reneged” on 2026-08-21 and the duties took effect at 12:01 a.m. on 2026-08-22.
- 2026-09-08, five more. The motor-vehicle ones read here: one re-scopes the product list from 2026-09-15 and says the duties apply “in addition to duties imposed pursuant to section 232”; the other excludes listed products from importation altogether from 2026-09-29. The triage’s three questions are answered by the text. Authority: section 338, as the titles suggested. Mirror-shaped: no. Section 338 offsets discrimination — Canada treating U.S. commerce worse than other countries’ commerce — not a partner’s tariff being higher than ours; each duty is a flat 50 percent on a product list, and the words “reciprocal” and “mirror” appear in none of the three July texts. Beyond Canada: no — one partner, three sectors. The USRTA’s object is standing authority to raise U.S. tariffs to match a nonreciprocal partner’s; an anti-discrimination statute applied to one country is a different instrument, so it is not the executive workaround §3b would count as attempted, and no event is added — nothing here is an instrument on this ask.
- https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/23/2026-14997/imposing-additional-duties-to-offset-canadian-discrimination-against-the-commerce-of-the-united (operative text read at govinfo, FR-2026-07-23/2026-14997; 14991 and 14992 read the same way)
- https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/24/2026-17294/temporary-suspension-of-additional-duties-to-offset-canadian-discrimination-against-the-commerce-of
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/09/excluding-certain-canadian-products-from-importation-into-the-united-states-in-response-to-continued-discrimination-against-the-commerce-of-the-united-states-with-respect-to-motor-vehicles/
- The ITC’s request for comments on its section 338(g) duty (2026-09-09, 91 FR 57387, docket MISC-053, comments due 2026-11-09) is the Commission readying the statutory machinery for more of the same — still discrimination findings, not mirror authority: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/09/09/2026-18385/request-for-comments-regarding-implementation-of-19-usc-1338g Revisit if a section 338 action is ever framed as matching a partner’s tariff rate, or is extended across partners: that would be the USRTA’s shape without the statute.
Scan triage 2026-09-24: the five 2026-09-08 proclamations now have Federal Register citations. They reached fr-presdocu as backfilled records — signed on the watermark’s own date and published 2026-09-23, so a date-based scan could not print them, and only the report’s Backfilled column showed they were there. They are the same five documents the 2026-09-10 review read at whitehouse.gov, and nothing in the reading changes. For the record: alcoholic beverages exclusion, 91 FR 58311 (FR 2026-18835); dairy exclusion, 91 FR 58319 (2026-18836); motor vehicles exclusion, 91 FR 58325 (2026-18837); alcoholic beverages scope modification, 91 FR 58331 (2026-18838); motor vehicles scope modification, 91 FR 58339 (2026-18839). No event, no change of reading: still section 338 anti-discrimination duties against one partner in three sectors, not mirror authority. A sixth new Canada-related record this round, USTR’s annual Request for Comments on Significant Foreign Trade Barriers for the 2027 National Trade Estimate Report (FR 2026-18775, 2026-09-14), is the routine yearly call for comments and is not an instrument on this ask; the scan proposed it against #798 and #1980, where it does not reach either.

Action: create
Object: United States Reciprocal Trade Act (USRTA)
ID: 2073