While President Donald Trump trumpeted that his move fulfills a long-held promise to defend American manufacturers, the restrictions themselves appeared unexpectedly restrained. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo Trump delivers dose of ‘America First’ ahead of Davos

President Donald Trump unveiled his first major action as trade enforcer-in-chief on Monday, opening the door to a host of other trade restrictions that buck the global order and give him a hammer to push his “America First” vision at the gathering of global elites in Davos, Switzerland.

The decision to slap tariffs and other trade restrictions on imports of both solar panels and washing machines is being seen as a prelude to coming actions on steel and aluminum imports, as well as a wide-ranging case that aims to punish China for intellectual property abuses.


“The president’s action makes clear again that the Trump administration will always defend American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses in this regard,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement.

Trump will formally sign the two trade actions during an Oval Office ceremony on Tuesday afternoon. But even as the president is keen to trumpet the moves as fulfillment of his long-held promise to defend American manufacturers, the restrictions themselves appeared unexpectedly restrained. That could be a sign that the White House took under consideration warnings that — in the case of solar — thousands of installation and other related jobs across the U.S. could be lost if the flow of cheap solar panels were cut off.

The actions hew closely to the recommendations of the U.S. International Trade Commission, a quasi-judicial body. It initially determined that the affected U.S. companies were at risk of being damaged by unfairly priced and subsidized imports.

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The efforts are the result of a pair of rarely seen Section 201 investigations, a provision under trade law that allows U.S. companies to petition for remedies on a global basis as opposed to the country-specific approach most trade cases follow.

The tariffs that Trump set on solar products — 30 percent in the first year and stepping down by 5 percentage points over each of the next three years — were short of the 50 percent limit he is allowed to impose under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974.

The three years of trade restrictions on washing machines and parts will be set via a so-called tariff-rate quota, which allows imports of a certain number of fully assembled machines under a 20 percent tariff. Imports beyond the quota will be subject to a much higher 50 percent tariff the first year. The remedy stops short of Whirlpool’s petition for a flat 50 percent tariff on imported machines made by rivals Samsung and LG.

The effects of the decisions could soon be felt as other countries gear up legal challenges that could come with the potential for billions of dollars' worth of retaliation.

The last time a similar measure was used dates to 2002, when former President George W. Bush approved global tariffs on steel imports. However, those tariffs were withdrawn a little more than a year later after the WTO ruled them to be illegal and authorized the European Union to impose retaliatory duties on $2.2 billion worth of U.S. goods ranging from oranges to textiles.

Under Section 201, countries that the United States has trade agreements with are usually exempted from trade remedies — and the ITC commissioners had recommended to exclude them. But only developing countries with a very small percentage of imports were excluded in both the washing machine and solar actions; Canada was the only other country excluded from trade restrictions on washing machines.

The moves could embolden other U.S. manufacturing sectors that are waiting in the wings to petition for similar measures, said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“By imposing tariffs in these two cases, President Trump just ended any doubt that he was hesitant on protectionism. But the big worry is the potential tariffs that are still to come,” he said.

U.S. manufacturing groups praised the actions, hoping they do indeed portend a coming wave of actions aimed at protecting U.S. workers.

"Now that President Trump has taken action in these high-profile cases, we hope that he also will keep his promise to defend American-made steel and aluminum,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

Sen. Sherrod Brown cheered the curbs on washing machines. The Ohio Democrat has found trade to be a rare area of cooperation with the Trump administration. Lighthizer briefed Brown earlier Monday by telephone before the actions were announced, and the lawmaker has been in close contact with the administration throughout the investigation, a source said.

“This is welcome news for the thousands of Whirlpool workers in Clyde, Ohio, whose jobs have been threatened by a surge of cheap washers,” Brown said in a statement.

Whirlpool, based in Michigan, announced Monday that it would be able to add 200 new positions at its Ohio plant.

But in both cases, free-trade advocates say that the moves would do more harm than good.

While the actions may help the two solar companies that petitioned for the duties — Suniva and SolarWorld Americas — critics have warned that lifting the costs of solar energy could hamstring the industry, which has seen torrid growth over the past decade and is now cheaper than coal and natural gas-fired electricity in parts of the country.

“More good-paying jobs will be jeopardized by today’s decision than could possibly be saved by bailing out the bankrupt companies that petitioned for protection,” Clark Packard, trade policy counsel at the conservative R Street Institute, said in a statement. “Today’s decision also will jeopardize the environment by making clean energy sources less affordable.”

Samsung and LG — the South Korean companies targeted in the washing machine case — have warned that restrictions could hinder their ability to ramp up production and hire U.S. workers at new factories in South Carolina and Tennessee. Samsung cut the ribbon on its South Carolina plant this month, with the first washing machine rolling off a production line that will employ 600 workers.

“This tariff is a tax on every consumer who wants to buy a washing machine,” a Samsung spokeswoman said in a statement. “Everyone will pay more, with fewer choices.”