Top White House trade adviser Peter Navarro says that the administration is still planning to raise its global tariff to 15%.
President Donald Trump said last month that the duty, now at 10%, would rise, but he has yet to implement a hike. “It's going to 15,” Navarro said during an event hosted by Politico. “It's in process to happen.”
Why it matters: The administration is using multiple tools to replicate the tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court, Navarro said, including unfair trade probes and sector-specific national security tariffs.
Some analysts have warned that if unfair trade investigations recommend tariff rates identical to the emergency tariffs struck down, the probes may appear predetermined and vulnerable to legal challenge.
Navarro addressed the issue on Wednesday, stressing “Nothing's predetermined.”
“It's all about the negotiation,” he added.
Push for year-round E15 legislation continues
The Trump administration’s latest waiver allowing summertime sales of E15 is prompting renewed calls for Congress to hurry up and find a permanent solution for the corn-made fuel.
Iowa Republican Rep. Zach Nunn said he’s thrilled with EPA’s move that will help corn farmers, but getting a legislative fix is the highest priority for him.
“It's good for guys who are going to the field already, but that is a first-step solution,” Nunn told Agri-Pulse. He added that an E15 measure could potentially go into a farm bill or a “must pass” defense funding package.
“This needed to move forward 30 days ago. Let's not wait another 30 days,” Nunn said.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, top Democrat on the Senate Ag Committee, agrees an upcoming farm bill is a good place for E15.
“We need to have a mix of fuel supplies because biofuels are no longer just a specialty fuel,” she said. “And when gas is so expensive, what better time?”
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South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds is on board with E15 in a farm bill as well.
He also thinks it would be too difficult to pass E15 without language to revamp Renewable Fuel Standard exemptions for oil refiners.
But, but, but: Senate Ag Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., told Agri-Pulse he believes E15 could cross the finish line without the RFS provision. “There's enough congressional support that it can ride about any way it wants to ride.”
SAF subsidy push also underway
Members of Congress also face pressure to act on sustainable aviation fuel..
Members of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Coalition, a nonpartisan group of more than 50 organizations across the SAF value chain, swarmed Capitol Hill on Wednesday to press lawmakers to bring back a SAF tax credit of $1.75 a gallon. The incentive got bumped down to $1 a gallon last year in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Groups including NATSO, which represents truck stops and travel centers, had pushed hard to slash the credit. The group argued that giving SAF producers a bigger financial incentive than bio-based diesel makers would raise costs because the two fuels use the same feedstocks.
The SAF coalition says the cut is crimping production growth at a crucial time for a U.S. market still in its infancy and facing competition from nations like Brazil and China.
“With the right policy support, the United States can lead the sustainable aviation fuel market,” said SAF Coalition executive director Alison Graab. “Domestic production more than doubled in 2025 alone, and we're just getting started.”
EU Parliament to vote on US deal amid intense pressure
The European Parliament is expected to vote today to ratify a U.S.-EU trade pact agreed to last summer amid fierce U.S. pressure.
The legislature delayed ratification over Trump’s threats earlier this year to use tariffs to advance his goal of acquiring Greenland. The deal likely has sufficient support to clear Parliament, after which member states will weigh in through the European Council in the final step of the approval process. There’s no set timeline for that vote.
U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Andrew Puzder has been vocal in articulating what is at stake should the agreement falter. In an interview with Bloomberg this week he warned that the EU would be “hit with the increased tariffs” if it failed to ratify the deal. “For us, nothing changes,” he added.
Take note: The EU completed a free trade deal with Australia this week that was 10 years in the making. It comes on the heels of new agreements with India and Mercosur countries as the bloc has responded to higher U.S. tariffs by strengthening trade ties with partners.
Groups criticize USDA cancellation of program to help farmers buy land
Groups that were due to receive about $300 million in federal funding to help farmers purchase land are protesting USDA’s decision to cancel their contracts.
The department says it needs “to clean up the mess left for us by the last administration.” A USDA spokesperson said in a statement that projects under the Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program had “multimillion-dollar budgets with vague justifications such as ‘travel’ and ‘supplies’”
All but one of 50 projects under the program set up by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act received termination notices. In a news release, the groups said those notices “claim that ‘most of the awards did little to improve land access’ and that there was ‘excessive spending on outreach and technical assistance.’”
They also said the program “involved discriminatory preferences based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and “wasteful spending,” according to a cancellation letter shared with Politico, which first reported on the cancellations.
But the groups said USDA leadership had already spent more than a year “systematically undermining the program – freezing funding, cutting off communication with awardees, and withholding the approvals grantees needed to move forward with land acquisitions, farmland down payment assistance, low-interest loans, and other core project activities.”
STB proposes reform of NEPA regulations
The Surface Transportation Board is proposing to reform its permitting processes for rail infrastructure projects now that the Supreme Court has weighed in on how much detail reviews need under the National Environmental Policy Act.
The board on Tuesday issued a proposal that would expand “categorical exclusions” from NEPA for certain actions it sees as having a limited environmental impact. The proposal also would update information requirements, require earlier agency consultations, and adjust deadlines and page limits for documents.
Take note: The Supreme Court last year ruled that NEPA analyses only need to include direct impacts of the projects under review rather than upstream or downstream impacts. That case involved the board’s review of an 88-mile rail line in Utah.
Final word
"Jay Powell, the worst Fed chairman in modern history. ... Jay Powell has an attitude, okay. His attitude is tariffs cause inflation. ... What Powell doesn't understand is, kind of, the power of the Trump agenda." – White House trade adviser Peter Navarro at a Politico event Wednesday, commenting on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
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