Trade groups urge a ‘more targeted' Trump tariff policy

Washington — President Donald Trump says his latest round of tariffs announced April 2 will "supercharge" U.S. industries, but plastics and manufacturing groups had a more skeptical reaction, warning of disruption and higher costs.

"These new tariffs will disrupt supply chains, increase production costs and undermine our global competitiveness," said Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association in Washington, which like some other business groups, urged Trump to take a more surgical approach.

"Rather than imposing across-the-board tariffs that will harm American manufacturers and stifle growth, we encourage the administration to consider more targeted policies that take into account supply chains, promote investment, and maintain growth in U.S. manufacturing," Seaholm said in a statement.

Recyclers also pointed to the risks for 600,000 jobs in the U.S. without access to international markets.

In a White House speech, Trump announced across-the-board 10 percent tariffs on all countries and 25 percent tariffs on imported cars.

Additionally, some countries will be subject to higher "reciprocal" tariffs based on Trump administration calculations of their tariff rates and other trade barriers.

Goods from European Union would receive 20 percent tariffs, for example, while exports from China would receive an additional 34 percent tariff.

"For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike," Trump said at the opening of a nearly hour-long address at the White House. "Foreign leaders have stolen our jobs. Foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American Dream."

Plastics and manufacturing groups urged the Trump administration to take a more "strategic" approach.

Seaholm said the plastics group supports Trump's goal of strengthening U.S. business but urged the administration to consider that the U.S. plastics industry runs a trade surplus of about $1 billion on exports of $74.2 billion.

"Our industry urges a thoughtful, strategic approach to trade and tariffs," Seaholm said.

Similarly, the National Association of Manufacturers said in a statement that its companies were going to "brace for impact" from the tariffs, and also urged a more targeted approach from the Trump administration.

Specifically, it wanted Trump to minimize tariffs for manufacturers that are investing in the U.S. and give tariff-free access to critical inputs that factories use in their U.S. manufacturing.

NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons also said the administration should negotiate "zero-for-zero tariffs for American-made products in our trading partners' markets. … They don't charge us, and we don't charge them."

Timmons said the new tariff regimen threatens U.S. manufacturing investment and competitiveness.

"Today's announcement was complicated, and manufacturers are scrambling to determine the exact implications for their operations," Timmons said. "The stakes for manufacturers could not be higher.

"Many manufacturers in the United States already operate with thin margins," he said. "The high costs of new tariffs threaten investment, jobs, supply chains and, in turn, America's ability to outcompete other nations and lead as the preeminent manufacturing superpower."

NAM urged the administration and Congress to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent, saying they helped factories and should be part of a manufacturing strategy with "a clear, strategic approach to trade."

Trump, however, said his tariffs were needed to correct persistent trade deficits with other countries, and will lead to more manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

At the White House briefing, Trump said the 20 percent tariffs on imports from the European Union was based on administration calculations of an effective EU rate of 39 percent on U.S. goods from tariffs and other trade barriers.

For China, the administration calculated a 67 percent effective rate on U.S. exports.

Trump said the U.S. was setting its reciprocal tariffs at half the level faced by U.S. goods, when also factoring in non-tariff barrier like currency manipulation.

He said the reciprocal tariffs could have been set higher: "We are being very kind."

The administration's executive order said the U.S. lost 5 million factory jobs between 1997 and 2024.

"In the coming days, there will be complaints from the globalists and the outsourcers and special interests and the fake news," Trump said. "But don't forget, every prediction our opponents made about trade for the last 30 years has been proven totally wrong. They were wrong about NAFTA. They were wrong about China."

The United States had a trade deficit in manufactured goods of about $1.2 trillion in 2024.

Policy groups split on the meaning of those deficits, with the Cato Institute arguing concerns are misplaced and that the U.S. remains a manufacturing powerhouse, while the Economic Policy Institute argues that botched trade policy has decimated U.S. factory jobs.

Federal Reserve data said the U.S. had 17.6 million manufacturing jobs at the end of 1997, compared with 12.7 million in December 2024, with analysts pointing to trade, automation and a shift to a more service-oriented economy.

Other manufacturing groups said the Trump tariffs would lead to economic harm.

A group representing recycling companies echoed the plastics association and said the recycling sector has a trade surplus and that tariffs would disrupt U.S. recycling operations. It said it feared the impact of retaliatory tariffs from other countries.

"The U.S. recycled materials industry is a net exporter and supports nearly 600,000 jobs nationwide, with the exports of recyclables helping to reduce the U.S. trade deficit," said the Recycled Materials Association, formerly known as the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries.

"The imposition of new tariffs on our international trading partners will significantly disrupt U.S. manufacturing and recycling operations that depend on recycled material inputs," it said. "U.S. recyclers rely on international market access to support their workforce and these new tariffs, and any retaliatory measures they may provoke, will only reduce the competitiveness of our industry and the manufacturers that rely on recycled materials."

The head of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association of Canada said, in a grammatically stylized post on the social media platform X, that the tariffs will "sink" the U.S. auto sector.

"The. Auto. Tariff. Package. Will. Shut. Down. The. Auto. Sector. In. The. USA. And. In. Canada," said APMA President Flavio Volpe. "Don't be distracted. Twenty-five percent tariffs are 4 times the [6 percent to 7 percent] profit margins of all the companies."

Volpe reposted an article late April 2 from CTV News in Canada that said a Stellantis car plant in Windsor, Ontario, would shut down for two weeks starting April 7, with union officials telling the media outlet that the "primary driver" was the Trump administration's latest tariff announcement.