by Itunuoluwa Adebo

POTUS on Friday will make the next move aimed at reshaping US trade policy, signing two executive orders aimed at combating foreign trade abuses that contribute to the US’s half-trillion-dollar trade deficit.

The orders will initiate a large-scale review of the causes of the US’s trade deficits with some of its largest trading partners and order stricter enforcement of US anti-dumping laws to prevent foreign manufacturers from undercutting US companies by selling goods at an unfair price. They show the administration’s ongoing efforts to shift toward policies aimed at bolstering US manufacturing and making good on Trump’s campaign rhetoric accusing other countries for taking advantage of the US’s free trade policies.

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The signing comes a week before Trump is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. China, the largest source of the US’s trade deficit, has repeatedly run afoul of the US’s anti-dumping laws, and Trump has repeatedly accused the country of hurting the US economy through unfair trading practices.

Briefing reporters at the White House on Thursday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro, director of the National Trade Council, insisted the measures were not aimed at putting China on notice ahead of that first hotly anticipated meeting between the two world leaders.

Ross said “These actions are designed to let the world know that this is another step in the president fulfilling his campaign promise to (tackle trade abuses).”

Still, both Ross and Navarro made clear that both executive orders would tackle the sources of the US’s trade deficit with China, which Trump argues has led to the loss of millions of US jobs and the decline of US manufacturing.

Itunuoluwa