NEW DELHI: As part of its tariff pressure, the US Trade Representative has launched a section 301 investigation against 15 countries, including India, to ascertain if there is structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors.Based on the outcome of the probe – which follows US Supreme Court’s rejection of Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariff using emergency powers – the USTR can impose penalties on the countries whose policies are seen to be hurting American interests.While identifying solar modules, petrochemicals and steel among areas where India has “created significant excess capacity”, USTR Jamieson Greer said that the country’s trade surplus sectors include textiles, health, construction goods, and automotive goods.Probe aimed at reshoring critical supply chains: GreerGreer said, “The US will no longer sacrifice its industrial base to other countries that may be exporting their problems with excess capacity and production to us. Today’s investigations underscore President Trump’s commitment to reshore critical supply chains and create good-paying jobs for American workers across our manufacturing sectors.”“The Trump Administration’s reindustrialisation efforts continue to face significant challenges due to foreign economies’ structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors. Across numerous sectors, many US trading partners are producing more goods than they can consume domestically. This overproduction displaces existing US domestic production or prevents investment and expansion in US manufacturing production that otherwise would have been brought online. In many sectors, the US has lost substantial domestic production capacity or has fallen worryingly behind foreign competitors,” he said.Apart from India, the probe covers China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico and Japan.
