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Thompson Hine LLP, a full-service business law firm with approximately 400 lawyers in 11 offices, was ranked number 1 in the category “Most innovative North American law firms: New working models” by The Financial Times and was 1 of 7 firms shortlisted for The American Lawyer’s inaugural Legal Services Innovation Award. The firm has been recognized by the National Law Journal as a Legal Technology Trailblazer and featured by Bloomberg for its innovative service delivery models, which drive accuracy and predictability. The firm’s commitment to innovation is embodied in Thompson Hine SmartPaTHTM – a smarter way to work – predictable, efficient and aligned with client goals. For more information, please visit ThompsonHine.com and ThompsonHine.com/SmartPaTH.

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Just days after it became publicly known that U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer was preparing to implement an exclusion request process for the third tranche of imported Chinese products valued at $200 billion and subject to a 10 percent tariff under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (see <a href="https://www.trumpandtrade.com/2019/05/ustr-lighthizer-indicates-exclusion-process-will-begin-for-chinese-products-subject-to-10-tariff/">Trump and Trade Update of May 3, 2019</a>), President Donald Trump on May 5, 2019, tweeted that those same tariffs would soon increase to 25 percent.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
....of additional goods sent to us by China remain untaxed, but will be shortly, at a rate of 25%. The Tariffs paid to the USA have had little impact on product cost, mostly borne by China. The Trade Deal with China continues, but too slowly, as they attempt to renegotiate. No!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1125069836088950784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 5, 2019</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As these tweets read, the president not only intends to raise the tariff level to 25 percent by Friday, May 10, 2019, but also is considering a 25 percent tariff on imports from China valued at $325 billion &ndash; essentially placing a tariff on all products imported from China into the United States.
While TrumpandTrade.com is not in the habit of posting updates based solely on the president&rsquo;s tweets (nothing has been formally posted on the White House or USTR websites), we deemed this development to be newsworthy. It appears that no one else in the Trump administration was aware that such an announcement would be made on the eve of a scheduled Chinese trade delegation visit to Washington, D.C. this week to continue negotiations to end the &ldquo;trade war&rdquo;; and Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have reported that such discussions were close to concluding. It now remains to be seen whether Trump&rsquo;s negotiating strategy of threatening to raise the tariff and implement further tariffs will exert more pressure on China and lead to a favorable conclusion of negotiations, or result in China retaliating.

core/freeform

SmarTrade

Trump Tweets Additional Section 301 Tariffs on Chinese Products To Be Imposed May 10