Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, told Congress on July 22 that an ongoing “national emergency” on trade made it imperative that the administration under Donald Trump stick to its guns when it comes to levying punitive tariffs on allies and foes alike.
Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, Greer said he considered President Trump’s tariff policy a success and would use whatever tools he had available to continue it, in an effort to transform the economy, reports The New York Times.
With an across-the-board temporary 10% tariff due to expire July 24, the Trump administration has made clear it intends to introduce another barrage of global tariffs as soon as this week. These will need to use arguably more defendable legal grounds than the “Liberation Day” tariffs Trump introduced in April 2025 under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which were deemed illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court in February.
As has been the case since Trump began his second term, threatened tariffs are often reduced or eliminated after one-on-one negotiations with affected trading partners. On July 20, the White House announced punitive additional 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods, prompting pushback from Canada’s Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who now says he and Trump will “intensify” their negotiations.
However, there’s no question the trade landscape has changed. The federal government collected $194.9 billion in revenues from tariffs in FY 2025, and $163 billion in the first half of 2026, alone, according to USAFacts.org, an organization that analyzes publicly available data. After the Supreme Court ordered the U.S. government to repay the duties collected under the IEEPA tariffs, Customs paid back $81 billion, as of July 2026, with more to come. This caused the June U.S. budget deficit to rise to $120 billion, wiping out the $27 billion surplus in June 2025 that the administration touted as evidence of tariff success.
Greer persistently characterizes Trump’s tariff policy as a success, however. “The specific authorities this administration is using have changed, but the trade strategy has not,” Greer told the committee. “We are committed to continuing to use tariffs and to negotiate deals to support the reindustrialization of our economy, protect American workers and increase their wages and shrink our trade deficit.”
The Times reports that, at the hearing, several Republican senators emphasized the importance to their states of maintaining and expanding trade ties, while several Democrats denounced the Trump administration for treating close allies like Canada so harshly, and for raising consumer prices.
“These tariffs are raising costs, and everybody seems to know that except the Trump administration,” said Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia.
During a discussion in front of a live audience with Council on Foreign Relations president and former U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman in May 2026, Greer said, “As long as we have a giant trade deficit, we’re going to have tariffs.” He added, “Ultimately, at the end of the day, frankly, for national security reasons, I want to have our supply chain sourced from this hemisphere; from North America. That’s where we want to have it.”
